The MOST FAMOUS Assassinations In History

[Music] assassination of John F Kennedy Friday November 22nd 1963 John F Kennedy served as president during the height of the Cold War during his presidency he saw the increase of military spending on both nuclear and conventional forces and increased the number of us advisers in Vietnam from 400 to 16,000 the Bay of Pigs Fiasco the failure of 1400 Cuban Exiles trained by the CIA to invade their own country began at the start of his presidency then there was the Cuban Missile Crisis resulting in the USSR and the USA signing the Test Ban Treaty forbidding nuclear testing in the atmosphere it also established the hotline a direct telephone contact between the White House and the Kremlin during Kennedy's time in office the Berlin Wall was built by the Soviets in order to stop refugees from fleeing from East Germany to West Germany in Berlin he delivered a speech challenging Soviet oppression and gave hope to the people of the city but in the winter of 1963 the presidency of John F Kennedy would be tragically cut short on November 21st 1963 President John F Kennedy and his wife jackelin departed on Air Force 1 for a 2-day 5 City tour of Texas he was to announce his candidacy for the 1964 presidential elections there because Texas was vital for his re-election Texans needed to be convinced as the state was largely not in favor of Kennedy's Civil Rights policies and handling of foreign policies like the Bay of Pigs Fiasco the feuding among Democratic Party leaders there also hindered his chances of reelection and they needed to be brought together the next morning on November 22nd Kennedy made a speech to a large crowd outside the hotel that he had stayed in at Fort worth and then made another speech inside at a breakfast hosted by the local Chamber of Commerce he would say in the last speech he would ever make this is a very dangerous and uncertain world we would like to live as we once lived but history will not permit it the presidential party left the Texas Hotel and went by motorcade to Carswell Air Force Base boarding Air Force 1 and landing at Dallas's Lovefield airport a short time later President Kennedy and his wife shook hands with an enthusiastic crowd and sat in the back seats of their limousine as part of the motorcade Democratic Texas governor John Connelly and his wife were seated in the seats in front of them in front of these seats were two Secret Service agents the president's next stop was the Dallas trademark approximately 10 Mi away where Kennedy was scheduled to deliver another speech it's estimated that about 200,000 people line the route to the trademark the limousine the president was traveling in was an open top 1961 Lincoln Continental four-door convertible limousine that was called the ss100x by the Secret Service the motorcade moved through D Plaza in Downtown Dallas Nelly Connelly the first lady of Texas turned around to the president who was sitting behind her and commented Mr President you can't say Dallas doesn't love you which President Kennedy acknowledged by saying no you certainly can't those were the last words ever spoken by John F Kennedy at 12:30 p.m. the motorcade was passing the grassy null to the north of Elm Street and moving towards the Texas schoolbook depository then gunshots were heard a bullet hit President Kennedy's neck and hit Governor Connelly's shoulder and wrist a second shot then hit President Kennedy in the head covering the limousine rear interior with fragments of skull blood and brain the impact was so severe that blood and fragments even landed on the Secret Service car that was following behind the limousine sped off to Parkland Memorial Hospital within minutes but it was already too late and doctor's efforts were in vain Kennedy was declared dead at 1: p.m. Connelly would recover from his wounds the country and the world was in shock President Kennedy's body was taken from Parkland Hospital to Lovefield and loaded onto Air Force 1 at 238 p.m. sheltered on board Air Force 1 in case of further assess assassination attempts lynon B Johnson took the oath of office with Jaclyn Kennedy by his side still wearing her blood spattered clothes the oath was administered by US District Court Judge Sarah Hughes less than an hour earlier a person had been arrested by the police Witnesses had reported hearing and seeing shots from different directions but several accounts mentioned the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository building only two employees from the building bu were missing one who had walked outside and wasn't allowed back into the building by police at the time of the shooting and another Lee Harvey Oswald who had only been working there for a month he had been seen and described by the witnesses who saw him in the sixth floor window so a description was sent out by the police as he moved down the floors he was encountered by Dallas police officer Marian El Baker who had his gun drawn he was allowed to pass however because Oswald's supervisor identified him as an employee Oswald had slipped out of The Book Depository after the shooting had walked several blocks caught a city bus and then hailed a taxi that took him straight to his boarding house there he picked up a pistol and a coat and began to walk aimlessly Oswald had already left the scene on a bus to his boarding house by 12:40 p.m. but the police did discover a rifle underneath some boxes and its shells by the window on the sixth floor as Witnesses had described the police identified it as a 7.65 Mouser but later the FBI announced that the police were mistaken and the rifle was an Italian carono m91 38 bolt action rifle the secondhand italian-made carono rifle had been purchased by Oswald earlier in the year under the Alias a hell the Carano was a notoriously inaccurate weapon and for many it's hard to believe that with such a weapon Oswald despite his former military training could hit a moving Target like the president twice with such Precision at a range of approximately 250 ft shortly afterwards a Dallas policeman by the name of JD tippet was patrolling his usual area and saw a man who fitted the Oswald description on the corner of 10th Street in Patton Avenue after a brief exchange of words Oswald shot tippet four times with a 38 revolver killing him in front of witnesses Oswald ran to the nearby Commercial Street of Jefferson Boulevard a man named Johnny Calvin Brewer noticed his suspicious behavior and followed Oswell for several blocks to the Texas theater Oswald ducked there without buying a ticket Brewer hailed a police officer Nick McDonald who entered the theater accompanied by another officer both officers apprehended Oswald on the stage of the Texas theater six blocks away from the scene of the crime at 1:50 p.m. when Oswald was arrested he was carrying a forged identity card bearing the name Alec J hell the Alias he used to buy the rifle however Texas law imposed no control over the purchase of weapons there was no reason to buy it under an assumed name so why did Oswald buy the rifle and a handgun by mail order under his assumed name curiously Army intelligence was known to have a file on AJ hell the contents of which were destroyed before it could be acquired by investigators on Sunday morning November 24th after being held for two nights Oswald was being transferred from City Jail to the county jail the event was being broadcast live on TV for millions of Americans to see suddenly out of aware a man shot a pistol Point Blank at Oswald who died 2 hours later in Parkland Memorial Hospital the man who fired the pistol was Jack Ruby a local nightclub owner he said that he killed Oswald to spare Mrs Kennedy the discomfiture of coming back to trial the state funeral for President Kennedy was held on November 25th 1963 with representatives from more than 100 countries and millions of viewers watching it on television on November 29th 196 3 president Lynden B Johnson created the president's Commission on the assassination of President John F Kennedy also known as the Warren Commission after its chairman Earl Warren Chief Justice of the United States its 888 page final report was presented to Johnson on September 24th 1964 the Warren report concluded that Oswald who had become a skilled Marksman as a marine had fired three shots one that entered Kennedy's neck and exited through his throat before hitting Connelly one that hit Kennedy in the back of the head the Fatal shot and one that missed the president but ricocheted off a piece of sidewalk which injured James tag many disagreed with these findings and argued instead that there had been a second shooter on the grassy null in D Plaza that the motorcade had been approaching and there were Witnesses who thought they had heard shots coming from the direction of a railroad beyond the null the report however concluded that Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby had acted alone although the findings of the Warren Commission continue to be [Music] controversial Teddy Roosevelt the president that kept reading a speech after being shot 1912 the famous American Theodore Teddy Roosevelt was the biggest hero of the Spanish American war of 1898 won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for mediating an end to the Russo Japanese war and was the inspiration for the teddy bear toy one time he found himself in a bar fight when a cowboy was shooting wildly at the room scaring the customers the cowboy called Roosevelt foure eyes in reference to his famous spectacles and followed Teddy around with his guns Roosevelt hit him in the jaw with his left and right fist then the Cowboys guns went off and he hit his head on the bar knocking him unconscious another time Roosevelt's boat was stolen him and his friends built a boat from scratch in 3 days to hunt down the thieves they tracked them down along the river while in temperatures as low as 0° F when they caught the thieves Roosevelt roughed up and captured the men and brought them back to be arrested it said that to pass the time on the journey back he read poetry to the dangerous Bandits Roosevelt was elected vice president of the United States in 1901 but just over 6 months later he became the 26th president when the current president William McKinley was assassinated after being shot twice by Polish American Anarchist Leon shos at 42 Roosevelt became the youngest president in the nation's history when the US president refused to shoot a bearcub on a 1902 hunting trip a toy maker named a stuffed bear after Roosevelt soon the teddy bear fad swept The American Nation Roosevelt was also a mixed martial artist in jiujitsu Judo and boxing he loved boxing and he continued to do it even when he reached the White House he would often challenge professional boxers to hit him in the jaw as hard as possible and wouldn't hesitate to then knock them back one day Roosevelt challenged Colonel dant T me a military aid at the White House to a boxing match in the White House Gym Roosevelt demanded a tough fight in the fight me's punch landed on Roosevelt's left eye damaging blood vessels and making him blind in that eye after this he continued fighting in jiujitsu and Judo Roosevelt was successfully reelected for a second term as president in 1904 and served until 1909 he then decided not to try to be reelected for another time as he felt it was time for a younger man to take over but by the time of the next presidential elections in 1912 he had become disillusioned about how his party the Republicans were running the country so he stood as the presidential candidate for a newly formed Progressive Party which was often referred to as The Bull Moose Party it got its nickname because Roosevelt was often described himself as having the strength and vigor of a bull moose his running for a third term as a president was considered controversial because he intended to break the American tradition of two-term presidencies and while campaigning in Milwaukee in the state of Wisconsin in Hope of being elected president once more Roosevelt nearly suffered the same fate as McKinley he was about to give a speech when John Fleming shrank a Bavarian born Saloon keeper attempted to kill Roosevelt by shooting him with a revolver the bullet struck Roosevelt in his chest but his life was saved as the bullet was slowed down considerably as it went in first through the heavy Overcoat he was wearing then the steel reinforced eyeglass case in his breast pocket and finally the 50-page copy of the speech he was about to give before finally becoming lodged in his chest the crowd screamed in panic but Elbert Martin a secretary of the president and an ex- football player leapt from his car and tackled shrank to the ground soon former Rough Riders bodyguards and policemen were upon the Assassin and began hitting him Roosevelt stumbled but then straightened himself and reassured the audience with a beaming smile he turned to his Aid saying he pinked me Harry the crowd demanded blood and for shrank to be killed it was only Roosevelt who seemed to be calm and wanted to prevent this shouting don't hurt him bring him here I want to see him Ros El then asked the shooter what did you do it for when there was no answer he said oh what's the use turn him over to the police feeling the bullet hole in his chest Roosevelt coughed three times as an experienced Hunter and anatomist he concluded that the lack of blood being coughed up meant that the bullet had not reached his lung Roosevelt feeling he was not seriously injured insisted to the doctor that he was going to give his speech the speech lasted for 84 minutes despite the blood that could be clearly seen staining his shirt he started the speech by saying I don't know whether you fully understand that I've just been shot but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose then when his speech was finally over he allowed himself to be taken to the hospital where the doctors decided it would be more dangerous to remove the bullet and instead left it lodged in his chest muscle where it remained for the rest of his life shrank the wouldbe Assassin was later to claim he was told to kill Roosevelt by the ghost of the former President McKinley who came to him in a dream Roosevelt recovered quickly but was not successful in his bid to be reelected as president and later devoted much time to being an Explorer as well as a successful author he died in his sleep from a blood clot on January 6th 1919 at the age of 60 as for shrank his trial he was deemed insane and spent the rest of his life in a mental institution he died of bronchitis in 1943 at the age of 67 guerillo PRP and the assassination of arch Duke France ferdinan on Sunday June 28th 1914 Serbian nationalist NAD Delco chabanov threw a bomb at the back of a car carrying Arch duuk France Ferdinand the bomb rolled off and wounded around 20 people behind the arch Duke instead not the best start to an assassination that would lead to World War I in 1914 Europe looked a little different from today most of the continent was divided between three major Powers the German Empire Russian Empire and the austr Hungarian Empire with France Italy and a few other countries squashed in it was that last one the austr Hungarian Empire and its strain relations with its Southern neighbor Serbia that is key to understanding why the assassination occurred heard Serbia had grown to detest Austria Hungary after it occupied its neighbor called Bosnia heroina first in 1878 and formerly in 1908 Bosnia heroa contained a sizable Serb minority and was therefore believed by Serbian nationalists that it ought to be part of their own country Serbia overthrew their pro-roh Hungary rulers some years earlier in 1903 and had established a government that wasn't too f of the Empire by 1914 these tensions only increased as Serb and Bosnian Serb nationalists stoked the Flames of the slowly growing Fire by creating militant organizations to obtain their territorial objectives and France ferdinand's political desires significant as he was next in line as the Emperor of Austria Hungary only fueled their anger Ferdinand was in favor of a more unified empire where it slav citizens in Southeastern Europe would get better political representation while sounding great on paper to Serbian nationalists it would accomplish nothing but weakening their goals for a separate larger Serbian nation and so sought to prevent it in May 1911 the black hand was formed although back then it was better known as unification or death it was a secret revolutionary organization whose name tied in with its ultimate goal to break the southern provinces from the austr Hungarian Empire and create an enlarge supposedly ethnically United Kingdom of Serbia although not part of the black hand young poor Bosnian Serb gavrilo PRP who had been radicalized since his youth shared their sentiments and had befriended other radicals determined to change the tide of History later being introduced to the young Bosnia group like many others he believed Serbia had a moral duty to free yugoslavs still under austr Hungarian control prip was just 19 when he met other Bosnian serbs like himself after traveling to and living in Belgrade some of these later co-conspirators were students others were already revolutionary Exiles because of their socialist beliefs over the last 10 years leading up to 1914 there had been multiple attempts on government officials lives by other nationalists the most notable of this was ban zarich who attempted to assassinate General Maran vashan governor of Bosnia in Saro in 1910 he shot five times in his Direction before turning the gun on himself this is one of the events that spurred on princip and his co-conspirators just a few years later in 1913 relations between Bosnia and the rest of the Empire had reached an all-time low a state of emergency was declared by General Oscar pure leading to the dissolution of the Bosnian Parliament the imposition of Martial law and the shutdown of Serbian cultural and educational societies this of course only incited prp's rage further and he formed a group with two other friends Nelco chovi and trifco grabish whose goal was to ultimately follow the earlier zarich example but with more successful results they were not the only ones who had such designs the black hand who princip was already friendly with were already busy forming their own plans in Saro a prominent member of the organization Daniel iich sent chiov a note a newspaper clipping regarding the arch Duke's planned visit and a single word in the margins greetings jenovich showed the paper to prip who had the same thought this was their opportunity this was not the young men's first encounter elich and Prin were already friends along with jenovich and all members of the young Bosnia group a revolutionary anti- Ostro Hungary group elich would later claim he coordinated the attack completely although in truth he had been less the Puppeteer than the puppet from there the three boys consulted major tenos a Serbian officer and one of the founders of the black hand who agreed to provide the group with weapons to carry out the attempt they sent word to elich who immediately organized things in in Bosnia itself arranging to send three other young revolutionaries to meet the others in Saro their names were cetco Popovich Vaso trovich and Meed Meed bastic armed with six bombs four pistols and a cyanide pill each to be taken immediately after the assassination the seven young bosnians began their attempt it was June 28th 1914 Arch Duke France Ferdinand and his wife the Dutch Sophia were to inspect a military Garrison before traveling towards the city hall to open a new State Museum Daniel illich had position the Assassins along their route each young man armed with a bomb but it turns out killing is a lot easier in theory than in practice first the motorcade went past me bash who lost his nerve and failed to throw his bomb the same happened next with chalovich who also failed to act when he saw the car coming but the same can not be said of jenovich when the car came down his part of the route he summed up all the courage of a 19-year-old who had never seen war and threw his bomb which promptly rolled off the back of the archduke's car and under the wheels of the one behind in the motorcade injuring around 20 people but killing none What followed was more like a Looney Tunes episode than real life chovi immediately swallowed his cyanide pill before jumping in the river unfortunately the pills were old and ineffective so rather than kill the young student all it did was make him vomit and rather than the river washing him away chovi found himself standing in 13 cm of water as the river had dried up in the heat before being dragged out by police and beaten up before being taken into custody the rest vanished into the crowds in the confusion disheartened and angry their attempt had failed but unexpected for all of them that wasn't the group's last chance at the arch duuk after hearing others had been injured by the bomb Ferdinand changed his plans to visit the museum deciding instead he wanted to travel to the hospital and check on the injured but that message did not reach the arch Duke's drivers who continued with the original plan meanwhile gabrillo PRP was lamenting the group's failures at the nearby morit Schiller Cafe when a twist of fate changed the course of history almost directly in front of the young rebel the car carrying the arch dukee was told to stop the driver being told of his error when the car came to a stop and put into a slow reverse PRP saw his chance summoning his courage he pulled out the pistol Tangos had given him and at Point Blank Range shot Arch Duke France Ferdinand in the neck and his wife Sophia in the abdomen immediately after both were dead before they reached the hospital in the aftermath 25 persons were implicated in the assassination Meed basti escaped to Serbia but the others were not so lucky being over 20 years old jovic ilich and fellow conspirator jovanovich were executed and princip jenovich and grabia found themselves imprisoned at tranot where all three would die in the next four years interviews with prip jenovich and Popovich during their trials showed that these three at least did not regret their actions but they also didn't anticipate what would come next just a month later diplomacy and civility between Serbia and the austr Hungarian Empire had broken down completely Serbia with the knowledge of new support from the Russian Empire Still acquest to some of these demands by austr Hungary that included suppressing propaganda against the empire and allowing their officials to join the Serbian inquiry into the assassination but without a complete agreement ment austr Hungary responded by breaking diplomatic relations the Serbian Army mobilized assured of Russian support behind it Austria Hungary 2o did not stand alone however having nurtured a pact of alliance with the German Empire seeking to assure their Ally Kaiser vilhelm II and his administration issued the infamous blank check to the austr Hungarian government promising uncompromised assistance in their Endeavors in the Balkans emboldened by by their Ally on July 28th 1914 Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia shelling the national capital of Belgrade that very night what occurred in the days that followed was a near domino effect of hostility as European powers and Nations scrambled to honor pacts of friendship and Alliance Europe as historian Christopher Clark has written sleepwalked into war triggered in Earnest by an angry 19-year-old boy gabrillo princip operation Valkyrie the plot to kill Hitler July 20th 1944 World War II Nazi Germany the courtyard of the high command building in Berlin it was early in the morning of July 21st 1944 and in a courtyard lit by the headlights of an army truck a 36-year-old colonel was placed before a firing squad to be executed for high treason just before he was shot he cried out defiantly long live our sacred Germany so who was this man his name was Claus Von staenberg and apart from being an officer in the German Army he was also a war hero having been awarded the Iron Cross first class he was also of noble blood holding the grand title of count of staenberg his family being one of the oldest and most distinguished aristocratic Catholic families in southern Germany at the beginning of the war Stenberg took part in the Polish French Russian and North African campaigns he was also the man who nearly assassinated Adolf Hitler Hitler had survived several assassination attempts prior to this but this was to be the very last stenberg's views on Hitler were conflicting on one hand he thought he was a good military leader and was impressed by the fur's grasp of military strategy and he also thought he could save Germany from the corrupting Danger of Communism but he had serious misgivings about his social policies which went against his strong Catholic Christian and political beliefs staenberg thought that World War II was an unnecessary War feeling the conflict could and should have been avoided this view was quickly reinforced as the war unfolded he was first approached about joining the German resistance as early as 1940 but he declined out of loyalty to the oath he took to obey the office of the furer that Adolf Hitler held so at this stage he felt HonorBound to not get involved with the resistance but he became further disillusion with what he saw when he took part in the invasion of Russia in 1941 and was particularly disgusted by the SS's violent treatment of the Jewish population by 1942 he was meeting regularly with opponents of Hitler and coming around to the idea that Hitler's removal was the only way to save Germany staenberg was sent to Tunisia to join the Africa Corps to take part in the North African campaign in April 1943 his unit was strafed by an RAF fighter bomber and he was severely injured costing him an eye his right hand two fingers on his left hand and damage to his legs he spent 3 months in a hospital in Germany recovering from his wounds once recovered he could no longer carry out combat duties so staenberg was assigned to the office of General Friedrich olb in Berlin ol was the chief of the general Army office among the many things that his office had worked onri was to develop the contingency plan operation Valkyrie this was to be used in case of internal Uprising or unrest which was becoming a possibility as Germany was losing the war ingeniously the German resistants realized they could use this plan to mobilize the reserve Army to suppress the Nazi government as the conspirators who were seizing control for themselves for the plan to work Hitler had to be dead and this would allow for operation Valkyrie to be activated and have his inner circle falsely arrested framing them to look as if they were the heads of a fictitious coup attempt then the true conspirators would form a government more acceptable to the Allies which they then hoped could negotiate a reasonable peace with them staenberg was crucial for this plan to work as his duties in his new position included him attending regular meetings with Hitler and his high command so a plan was formulated with staenberg and his growing band of fellow conspirators that he would have a bomb with a 10-minute timer hidden in his briefcase among his papers they planned not only to kill Hitler but his two closest and Powerful trusted commanders at the same time Rees Marshall Herman guring and re fearer Heinrich himler but this proved impractical so on July 20th 1944 they put their plan into action staenberg attended a conference at L's command headquarters called the wolf's slir complex in East Prussia the original plan for the conference was that it was to be held in a secure underground concrete bunker but at the last minute perhaps because of the extreme heat of that summer day it was decided to hold the day's meetings in a more spacious above ground and well ventilated conference room around 20 people attended including Hitler stalberg had already set the fuse when he entered the conference room he then placed a briefcase under the giant Oak com reference table that everyone was crowded around as Hitler was pointing to various Maps then a pre-arranged phone call gave staenberg the excuse that he needed to leave the room straight away shortly afterwards at 12:42 the bomb exploded completely wrecking the conference room blowing out its walls causing the roof to collapse and starting several small fires the meeting stenographer was killed instantly three officers died a few days later from their injuries many others were also injured unknown to staenberg and his co-conspirators Hitler had survived the blast though his right arm had been badly injured it was also said his trousers had been blown off by the force of the explosion but in reality they were torn to shreds staenberg believing Hitler was dead had immediately driven away from the wolf's Lair and took a plane back to Berlin ordering operation valkery into effect units of the German Reserve Army were mobilized and took control of radio stations telephone centers and key government buildings at this time there were conflicting reports on Hitler's status after the explosion then the reserve Army also believing Hitler was dead made arrests of the leading members of the framed Nazi government thinking they were putting down a coup when in fact they were unwittingly aiding one major Otto Ern reer was ordered to arrest minister of propaganda Joseph GBL however the truth came out when GBL handed rer the telephone and he heard Hitler's voice on the other end realizing he had been taking orders from mutineers reer was now ordered to crush the plot by Hitler The Conspirator plan was brilliantly simple but quickly fell apart when it became apparent Hitler was still alive and the truth was out all of those involved were quickly rounded up including staenberg who was arrested after a short shootout where he was wounded in the shoulder Colonel General Friedrich FR who had been a quiet supporter of the coup betrayed them once it had failed staenberg and three other of the officers involved quernheim olb and Veron hafton were hastily tried in a court Marshal and taken to the Courtyard of the bendler block where they were shot this was against the orders by Hitler to arrest the conspirators alive most likely to hide fromm's involvement in the coup few of the conspirators evaded capture and many chose suicide rather than face torture and humiliation at the hands of the Gestapo the much-feared secret police so after rushed mock trials that were ironically called The People's Court and Sham Court Marshals it's estimated nearly 5,000 Germans were executed for their direct or indirect involvement in the plot they were executed by various means hanging guillotining firing squad and even strangulation stenberg's own brother was one of those slowly strangled to death in a Berlin prison in August since the war streets schools and buildings have been named after Stenberg in recognition of the sacrifice he had made to rid Germany of the Tyrant that was Hitler and the [Music] Nazis who killed William II 1100 ad nearly a thousand years ago on a summer day in 1100 ad deep in an English Forest lay a man man of noble birth dead on the ground a single Arrow had pierced his lung and killed him he had been out hunting that day with friends who later claimed they had become separated from him and he had been killed in a tragic hunting accident by a stray Arrow what his friends did next seemed both strange and against common decency made more unusual because his younger brother Henry was in The Hunting Party they all just left the body where it fell and continued on their way way except for the younger brother who rushed home in order to secure his inheritance and the family fortune as he was next in line the nobl man's body was later found by some peasants and was dragged off to be given an appropriate burial making it even more suspicious was the fact that the dead Noble was none other than William II King of England for it was only 34 years ago that his father Duke William of Normandy had defeated Harold II who was the last crown Anglo-Saxon King of England William then claimed the English Throne as his own and became William the first commonly known as William the Conqueror William the had a stormy and complex relationship with his four sons and they to had a similar relationship with him and each other his oldest son Richard died in a hunting accident in his late teens when he was Maul to death by an angry stag so when William the Conqueror died in 1087 ad the crown should have fallen to the next eldest son Robert but with a break from tradition the crown instead passed to the third eldest son who had been named after him therefore William succeeded to the throne to become William II only giving Robert the Estates in France making him the new Duke of Normandy both brothers were seen by most people including their own father as being flawed as both men and leaders but it was widely regarded that King William the Conqueror particularly dislike Robert and possibly saw his younger brother William as the best of a poor crop the fourth and last son Henry was young at the time of his father's death 18 or 19 years old he was probably not considered as a candidate for the throne because of his age and being so far down in the order of succession as for William II he was a character who was hard to understand full of vice and Ill temper at times many felt he lacked the dignity and refinement needed for a king at times he could be forceful and quite religious so it is accepted that he was Ill suited to be a monarch and was disliked by all those around him including his brothers so was his death an accident as claimed by The Hunting Party he was with or something far more Sinister first we'll look at the obvious possibility that it was an accident hunting accidents have always been common being royalty is no exception to this as an example in 1231 King valdemar the younger of Denmark was accidentally shot while hunting and subsequently died of his wounds so there is the distinct possibility that the simplest explanation is the correct one and it was just an accident but what makes William II's death so suspicious is the complex political situation he found himself in and how he was treated in death could it have been a cold and calculated assassination the most obvious suspect was his younger brother Henry who was now 32 William at the time of his death was in his early 40s and it was conceivable that he would live another 20 years maybe Henry was impatient to claim his god-given right of succession and Henry's abandonment of his King and brother's body seemed callous and even Brutal by medieval standards instead Henry rushed off and secured the Royal treasury at Winchester and got himself crowned in such haste that he didn't wait for the Archbishop to arrive which was the tradition it may have been prudent in such unsettled times to rush off but to instruct someone to take away his brother's body would have taken no time at all rather than to leave it to the Savage Heat Of The Summer's Day and any Wildlife that may come across it but there had been much animosity between the two brothers and Henry had much to resent William for as he felt he had been sidelined over the years in the matters of state so on coming to the the throne Henry canceled many of William II's policies Henry also had a harsh and manipulative side so perhaps he no longer wanted to live in his older brother's Shadow then there was the second eldest of the brothers Robert the very eldest was Richard but he had died some years earlier so tradition should have dictated the next in line for the throne was Robert but on the death of his father William the Conqueror he had instead inherited the family estates in northern France and therefore became the new Duke of Normandy instead of inheriting the English Throne unusually William the conqueror's will instructed that his son William should become king of England Robert was said to be a skilled Knight though it was said he was also very lazy and his relationship with his father and family was a complete mess he had led an unsuccessful Rebellion against his father in 1077 then after his younger brother William had become king he had led yet another unsuccessful rebellion in 108 8 by some miracle he survived carrying out these acts of treason and eventually Robert found his calling in life and was a leading figure in the First Crusade and set off for the Holy Land in 1096 in fact four years later he was returning home from the holy land when William was killed could this give him the perfect Alibi or was he planning to make yet another Power grab ahead of his return and underestimated his younger brother who had stole his inheritance from him it is worth considering that in the hunting party was a nobleman called Walter Tyrell of Normandy who had distant links with the royal family rumors emerged a few decades later that he may have killed B King by accident while trying to hunt a stag as The Story Goes he was so stricken with fear and guilt that he immediately fled to France where he died shortly afterwards the trouble is that the mentioning of this version of events is far and few between emerging sometime later and the facts are sketchy another Poss possibility is that William II who was often painted as a pleasure seeking womanizer had caused a jealous husband to seek revenge this could be a possibility as William was a confirmed Bachelor who never married and there is clear evidence that he had many Affairs so could it have been an offended husband who had been in the hunting party and who in a jealous rage swore Vengeance and killed the King when he became separated from the primary group or is there one last possibility could it have been a group of bitter Saxons angry at being conquered and ruled over by a group of Frenchmen who had taken their land away from their fathers and distributed it among themselves if this was a possibility why was there no attempt to instigate an uprising as power transferred to Williams brother Henry there is no record of this or anything that supports this Theory but records are scarce from this period due to how long ago it was and also the fact that written records were still only carried out by a Selected Few mainly the monastic borders but it is worth considering any record of lingering Saxon Insurrection would have been discouraged as it was in the English Monarch's interest to portray the country as a unified Nation as it was quickly becoming one of the most powerful countries in Europe so who killed William II it's unlikely that we will ever know but it seems he had many enemies with his corpse abandoned in a forest it was found by a group of peasants who respectfully took his body in the back of a commoner's cart to Winchester Cathedral with no pomp or ceremony by the time William's body got there the next day it would have entered the state of regam mortis all in all a most undignified end to a king's Reign so who killed William II of England and why [Music]

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Keywords: simple history, animated history, educational, education, animation, John F. Kennedy, jfk, Assassination, texas, dallas, President, usa, american, history, CIA, Berlin Wall, Fort Worth, Air Force One, motorcade, limousine, John Connally, Love Field, agent, secret service, Jackie Kennedy, Dealey Plaza, SS-100-X, Nellie Connally, Marrion L. Baker, police, FBI, carcano, rifle, sniper, Book Depository, A. Hidell, J.D. Tippit, Lee harvey, oswald, Jacqueline, Jack Ruby, Warren commision, grassy knoll

Id: wrONky9p1Qs

Length: 42min 48sec (2568 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2024