Charles Julius Guiteau was an American man who assassinated James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, in 1881. Guiteau believed he had played a major role in Garfield's election victory, for which he should have been rewarded with a consulship. He felt frustrated and offended by the Garfield administration's rejections of his applications to serve in Vienna or Paris to such a degree that he decided to kill Garfield and shot him at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C. Garfield died two months later from infections related to the wounds. In January 1882, Guiteau was sentenced to death for the crime and was hanged five months later.
Anne Elizabeth Applebaum is an American journalist and historian. She has written extensively about the history of Communism and the development of civil society in Central and Eastern Europe. Applebaum also holds Polish citizenship.
Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020, making him one of only four writers ever to win the prize twice. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.
The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America is a 2003 historical non-fiction book by Erik Larson presented in a novelistic style. Set in Chicago during the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition, it tells the story of World’s Fair architect Daniel Burnham and of H. H. Holmes, a criminal figure widely considered the first serial killer in the United States. Leonardo DiCaprio purchased the film rights in 2010. The concept has since been in development hell.
The Grand Pacific Hotel was one of the first two prominent hotels built in Chicago, Illinois, after the Great Chicago Fire. The hotel, designed by William W. Boyington and managed for more than 20 years by John Drake, was located on the block bounded by Clark Street, LaSalle, Quincy and Jackson. It was a replacement for the Pacific Hotel, which had been built in 1871, only to burn in the fire later that year.
James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States, was shot at the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Station in Washington, D.C., at 9:30 am on Saturday, July 2, 1881. He died in Elberon, New Jersey, two and a half months later on September 19, 1881. The shooting occurred less than four months into his term as president. He was the second American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865. Charles J. Guiteau was convicted of Garfield's murder and executed by hanging one year after the shooting.
Jerry S. Parr was a United States Secret Service special agent who is best known for defending President Ronald Reagan during the attempt on the president's life on March 30, 1981, in Washington, D.C. Parr pushed Reagan into the presidential limousine and made the critical decision to divert the presidential motorcade to George Washington University Hospital instead of returning to the White House. He was honored for his actions that day with U.S. Congress commendations, and is widely credited with helping to save the president's life.
At 2:15 a.m. Eastern Time on September 20, 1881, Chester A. Arthur was inaugurated the 21st president of the United States. The inauguration marked the commencement of Chester A. Arthur's only term as president. The presidential oath of office was administered by New York Supreme Court Justice John R. Brady at Arthur's private residence in New York City. Two days later, Arthur took part in a second inauguration in Washington, D.C., with the oath administered by Morrison Waite, the Chief Justice of the United States. Arthur became president following the death of his predecessor James A. Garfield, who had been assassinated by a troubled office seeker, Charles J. Guiteau.
David Elliot Grann is an American journalist, a staff writer for The New Yorker, and author.
Del Quentin Wilber is an American journalist who has served as the Washington investigations editor for the Associated Press since November, 2022.
A'Lelia Perry Bundles is an American journalist, news producer and author, known for her 2001 biography of her great-great-grandmother Madam C. J. Walker.
Doctor Willard Bliss was an American physician and pseudo-expert in ballistic trauma, who treated President James A. Garfield after his shooting in July 1881 until his death two and a half months later.
Candice Sue Millard is an American writer and journalist. She is a former writer and editor for National Geographic and the author of four books: The River of Doubt, a history of the Roosevelt–Rondon Scientific Expedition of the Amazon rainforest in 1913–14; Destiny of the Republic, about the assassination of James A. Garfield; Hero of the Empire, about Winston Churchill's activities during the Boer War; and River of the Gods, about the search for the source of the Nile River.
The SS Narragansett was a passenger paddle steamer of the Stonington Line that burned and sank on June 11, 1880, after a collision with her sister ship the SS Stonington in Long Island Sound.
Julia Isabella Sand (1848–1933) was an American woman who corresponded with President Chester A. Arthur, beginning in late August 1881. Arthur saved twenty-three letters, all of which were discovered in 1958 after his grandson, Chester Alan Arthur III, sold his grandfather's papers to the Library of Congress. The last surviving letter is dated September 15, 1883.
"I Am Going to the Lordy", alternatively titled "Simplicity", is a poem written by Charles J. Guiteau, the assassin of U.S. President James A. Garfield. He wrote it on June 30, 1882, the morning of his execution. He read it at the gallows.
Jedediah Hyde Baxter was a career United States Army officer and doctor who attained the rank of brigadier general as Surgeon General of the United States Army.
The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey is a 2005 book by Candice Millard covering president Theodore Roosevelt's scientific expedition down the River of Doubt, in Brazil. Millard's first book, it went on to become a Book Sense pick, winner of the William Rockhill Nelson Award, and a finalist for the Quill Awards.
Hero of the Empire: The Boer War, a Daring Escape, and the Making of Winston Churchill is a 2016 book by Candice Millard covering Winston Churchill's exploits during the Boer War. Her third book, Hero of the Empire garnered favorable response by major newspaper companies worldwide and was a winner of the 2017 Kansas Notable Book Awards.
Death By Lightning is an upcoming American historical drama miniseries created by Mike Makowsky, based on the novel Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard.
