9. Anton Cermak
“I’m glad it was me and not you, Mr. President.”
Cermak was the mayor Chicago from 1931 until the time of his death. He was murdered in Miami as he was shaking hands with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt by Giuseppe Zangara, who later told police that he didn’t hate Roosevelt, just rich and powerful people. As the story goes, just as Zangara was pulling the trigger for the bullet that would kill the man who would become America’s only four-term president, a woman named Lillian Cross saw the assassin take aim and hit his arm with her purse, causing the change in trajectory of his bullet. There has been some speculation that Cermak was indeed the target because of his intent to clean up the organized crime which was dominating Chicago at the time.
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