Editing Assassination (section)

===Modern history===
[[File:Moord op Willem van Oranje, 1584.jpg|thumb|upright|18th-century depiction of the [[William the Silent#Assassination|assassination]] of [[William the Silent]] by [[Balthasar Gérard]] on 10 July 1584]]

During the 16th and 17th centuries, international lawyers began to voice condemnation of assassinations of leaders. [[Balthazar Ayala]] has been described as "the first prominent jurist to condemn the use of assassination in foreign policy".<ref name=Thomas2000>{{cite journal |last1=Thomas |first1=Ward |title=Norms and Security: The Case of International Assassination |journal=International Security |date=July 2000 |volume=25 |issue=1 |pages=105–133 |doi=10.1162/016228800560408 |jstor=2626775 |s2cid=57572213 }}</ref> [[Alberico Gentili]] condemned assassinations in a 1598 publication where he appealed to the self-interest of leaders: (i) assassinations had adverse short-term consequences by arousing the ire of the assassinated leader's successor, and (ii) assassinations had the adverse long-term consequences of causing disorder and chaos.<ref name=Thomas2000/> [[Hugo Grotius]]'s works on the law of war strictly forbade assassinations, arguing that killing was only permissible on the battlefield.<ref name=Thomas2000/> In the modern world, the killing of important people began to become more than a tool in power struggles between rulers themselves and was also used for political symbolism, such as in the [[propaganda of the deed]].<ref name="Gillen">M. Gillen (1972). ''Assassination of the Prime Minister: the shocking death of Spencer Perceval''. London: Sidgwick & Jackson. {{ISBN|0-283-97881-3}}.</ref>

In Japan, a group of assassins called the [[Four Hitokiri of the Bakumatsu]] killed a number of people, including [[Ii Naosuke]] who was the head of administration for the Tokugawa shogunate, during the [[Boshin War]].<ref>Turnbull, Stephen. ''The Samurai Swordsman: Master of War''. Tuttle Publishing; 1st edition (August 5, 2014). p. 182. {{ISBN|978-4805312940}}</ref> Most of the assassinations in Japan were committed with bladed weaponry, a trait that was carried on into modern history.  A video-record exists of the [[Assassination of Inejirō Asanuma|assassination of Inejiro Asanuma]], using a sword.<ref name=chun>{{cite book |title=A Nation of a Hundred Million Idiots?: A Social History of Japanese Television, 1953–1973 |last=Chun |first=Jayson Makoto |publisher=Routledge |year=2006 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9miRAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA184 |pages=184–185 |isbn=978-0-415-97660-2 |access-date=March 22, 2014}}</ref>

In 1895, a group of Japanese assassins [[Assassination of Empress Myeongseong|killed the Korean queen]] (and posthumously empress) Myeongseong.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Nagai |first=Yasuji |date=2021-11-21 |title=Diplomat's 1895 letter confesses to assassination of Korean queen |url=https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14482741 |access-date=2023-08-16 |website=The Asahi Shimbun |language=en}}</ref>

In the United States, from 1865 to 1963, four presidents—[[Assassination of Abraham Lincoln|Abraham Lincoln]], [[Assassination of James A. Garfield|James A. Garfield]], [[Assassination of William McKinley|William McKinley]] and [[Assassination of John F. Kennedy|John F. Kennedy]]—died at the hands of assassins. There have been at least [[List of United States presidential assassination attempts|20 known attempts]] on U.S. presidents' lives.<ref>{{cite web |title=Appendix 7 |url=https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/appendix7.html |website=National Archives |access-date=20 May 2023 |language=en |date=15 August 2016}}</ref>

[[File:Thugs Strangling Traveller.jpg|thumb|A group of [[Thuggee]]s strangling a traveller on a highway in India in the early 19th century]]
In Austria, the [[assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand]] and his wife [[Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg]] was carried out in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, by [[Gavrilo Princip]], a Serbian nationalist. He is blamed for igniting [[World War I]]. [[Reinhard Heydrich]] died after an attack by British-trained Czechoslovak soldiers on behalf of the Czechoslovak government in exile in [[Operation Anthropoid]],<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://www.army.cz/images/id_7001_8000/7419/assassination-en.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live |title=Assassination&nbsp;– Operation Arthropoid, 1941–1942 |access-date= July 5, 2011 |last=Burian |first=Michal |author2=Aleš |year=2002 |publisher=Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic}}</ref> and knowledge from decoded transmissions allowed the United States to carry out [[Death of Isoroku Yamamoto|a targeted attack]], killing Japanese [[Admiral]] [[Isoroku Yamamoto]] while he was travelling by plane.<ref name=McNaughton2006>{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YHdFDZwbnkkC&pg=PA185 |page=185 |last=McNaughton |first=James C. |date=2006 |title=Nisei Linguists: Japanese Americans in the Military Intelligence Service During World War II |publisher=U.S. Government Printing Office |isbn=9780160867057}}</ref>

During the 1930s and 1940s, [[Joseph Stalin]]'s [[NKVD]] carried out numerous assassinations outside of the Soviet Union, such as the killings of [[Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]] leader [[Yevhen Konovalets]], [[Ignace Poretsky]], [[Fourth International]] secretary Rudolf Klement, [[Leon Trotsky]], and the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification ([[POUM]]) leadership in [[Catalonia]].<ref>Michael Ellman. [http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman.pdf "The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1934"]'). {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090227181110/http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/soviet/famine/ellman.pdf |date=February 27, 2009 }}. ''Europe-Asia Studies'', 2005. p. 826</ref> India's "Father of the Nation", [[Mahatma Gandhi]], was [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|shot to death]] on January 30, 1948, by [[Nathuram Godse]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hardiman |first=David |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/52127756 |title=Gandhi in his time and ours: the global legacy of his ideas |date=2003 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=0-231-13114-3 |location=New York |oclc=52127756}}</ref>

The African-American civil rights activist [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] was [[Assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.|assassinated]] on April 4, 1968, at the Lorraine Motel (now the [[National Civil Rights Museum]]) in [[Memphis, Tennessee]]. Three years prior, another African-American civil rights activist, [[Malcolm X]], was assassinated at the [[Audubon Ballroom]] on February 21, 1965.<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Karim |first1=Benjamin |first2=David |last2=Gallen |first3=Peter |last3=Skutches |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/26931305 |title=Remembering Malcolm |date=1992 |publisher=Carroll & Graf |isbn=0-88184-901-4 |edition=1st |location=New York |oclc=26931305}}</ref>