117 years ago at 3:30 PM, President William McKinley of Ohio, climbed the Temple if Music steps at the Pan-America man Exposition in Buffalo NY.
Around 4:07 PM, while standing in a receiving line, 28-year-old Leon Czolgosz stepped up to the President. Czolgosz’s hand, wrapped in a handkerchief as though bandaged, thrust forward, firing two shots into McKinkey’s sternum and abdomen.
McKinley stood still for a few seconds, stunned, before stepping back and collapsing. He struggled to tell his personal secretary, George Cortelyou, “my wife, be careful how you tell her – oh, be careful.”
President McKinley was taken to the exposition’s hospital where he was operated on without success in locating the bullet that passed through his abdomen.
With his wife, Ida, at his side, the president succumbed at 2:17 AM, September 14.
