5 Attacks That Marked History

What do we call “attack”? The Royal Spanish Academy defines it like this: “Assault against the life or physical or moral integrity of someone”, we understand that regardless of the cause that motivates it. What are the most important attacks in history? In truth, it is difficult to make a specific list, since countless attacks have been committed over the centuries for different reasons.

Some had no consequences other than personal ones (the harm to the victim and his close circle), but others had political, social and historical relevance. In today’s article, we review the causes and consequences of 5 of the most important attacks in history.

Causes and consequences of 5 attacks that marked history

From the assassination of Julius Caesar to the terrorist attack that took the life of the then president of the Spanish government, Luis Carrero Blanco, in 1973, passing through the Sarajevo attack of 1914 that led to the First World War. Below, we review the details of each of these historic attacks.

1. Julius Caesar: death at the feet of his enemy

The assassination of Gaius Julius Caesar on those famous Ides of March in 44 BC changed the course of Roman history. And the Senate had granted him, shortly before his death, the title of dictator for life (dictator perpetuus), something that, of course, had not been liked by all sectors of the old Roman Republic.

It is said that an augur warned Caesar to be careful on March 15, since his life was in danger. The dictator seemed to mock the prophecy; At least, when he met the man again on the morning of the appointed day, he told him that “the day had come and nothing had happened.” To which the fortune teller, taciturn, replied: “the day is not over yet.”

And so it was. It occurred in the so-called Curia of Pompey, where Caesar had gone to discuss some pending matters before his imminent departure from Rome to fight against the Parthians. After the pertinent signal (someone grabbed his toga), the conspirators, whose number historians do not agree on, attacked him. Be that as it may, Caesar fell stabbed and mortally wounded at the feet of the statue of Pompey, his former rival. The shadow of another civil war loomed over Rome.

2. Juan Prim: the snow turns red on Calle del Turco

The night of December 27, 1870 was freezing in Madrid. It had snowed all day and a thick layer of snow covered the streets. There was not a soul in the city because, in addition to the intense cold, darkness had dominated the corners for hours.

At the confluence of Calle del Turco (currently Calle del Marqués de Cubas) and Calle de Alcalá, a strange scene occurred: two stopped carriages forced the saloon carrying Juan Prim i Prats (1814-1870), the then president of the government, towards his home, the Buenavista Palace. But what seemed like momentary chaos turned into a tragic event; Immediately, three masked figures fired repeatedly at the president’s carriage.

Prim was rushed to the palace, injured but still conscious. From here on, everything was (still is today) a sea of ​​paradoxes and contradictions. It was announced during the following days that the president was recovering from his injuries, but after just over 48 hours, on December 30, the general’s death due to septicemia was made public. However, certain rumors began to spread, which maintained that someone had made sure to “finish him” in his bed…

The exhumation of the general’s mummy in 2010 and the studies that were carried out released various information. It seems that, on the corpse’s neck, a sign of drowning with a rope could be seen, which corroborated the version that he was “definitively” killed in his bed… a conclusion that was reviewed and refuted a year later thanks to a new study of the mummy.

The fact is that someone attacked Prim on Calle del Turco, with the obvious intention of killing him. Who wanted the general to disappear? Too many people, unfortunately. The attack may have been orchestrated by the Duke of Montpensier, eager to obtain the vacant throne after the expulsion of Isabel II of Spain, or it may have been the politician José Paúl Angulo (who was blamed in the immediate investigation). Be that as it may, Prim’s death left the new monarch, Amadeo of Savoy, without support, and the first thing he did when he landed on Spanish soil was to visit the burning chapel of his defender. A turbulent period was opening in the history of Spain.

3. Archduke Franz Ferdinand: the attack that started a world war

Although the First World War had been brewing for almost the entire 19th century, there is no doubt that The spark that definitively lit the fuse was the attack that occurred in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, which ended the life of the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and that of his wife Sofia Chotek.

The details of the conspiracy that led to the double murder are not entirely clear, although it is known that it was carried out by a group of young radical Bosnian nationalists, led by the terrorist Gavrilo Princip (1894-1918). Bosnia was one of the territories that was annexed to the Austro-Hungarian Empire and, like many other nations under the imperial aegis, yearned for independence.

The development of the attack was frankly chaotic. In fact, It can be said that it was a mistake that allowed Princip, who was in one of the city’s cafes, to have the heir within reach of his weapon. He and his men had tried to finish him off during the first parade, but they had not succeeded.

The archduke expressed his anger to the authorities, who decided to change the route of the imperial car. Unfortunately, no one informed the driver of this change, so Franz Ferdinand and Sofia passed exactly where they should not have passed; that is, ahead of an astonished Princip. We already know the result: one by one, the European countries declared war on each other by virtue of their alliances, and thus began one of the bloodiest conflicts in the history of Europe.

4. John Fitzgerald Kennedy and the “magic bullet”

No one could have guessed, on that sunny November day in 1963, that American history would come to a screeching halt and an entire nation would hold its breath. That day, November 22, around 12:30 noon, the then president, John F. Kennedy, and his wife, Jacqueline, got into the car they had reserved for their official parade through the city of Dallas, in the state of Texas. Bad luck would have it that, when the sun came out (it had rained in the morning) the vehicle was not covered, as planned.

Just when the car turns down one of the most important avenues in the city, as it passes in front of the school book depository, several explosions are heard that sound like fireworks. The president winces in pain and seems to bow under an unknown impact. Immediately, everyone realizes the terrible reality: Kennedy has been shot.

Although the president was still alive and was rushed to Parkland Hospital in Dallas, nothing could be done to save his life, and he was pronounced dead at 1:00 p.m. Shortly afterwards, unusually quickly, the police hunted down the suspect, who had taken refuge in a cinema and who had proclaimed himself innocent from the beginning.

His name, Lee Harvey Oswald, twenty-four years old; a young man linked to the USSR and married to a Russian citizen, who worked in the book depository and who, apparently, had bought the murder weapon.
The case seemed closed, but the fact is that Oswald insisted until the end that he “hadn’t killed anyone,” and that he was being used as a scapegoat. Shortly after the arrest, a mobster nicknamed Ruby appeared at the time of Oswald’s transfer to prison and fatally shot him. The alleged murderer had died… and, therefore, he could no longer give his version of the events.

Conspiracy theories skyrocketed. It was rumored that Oswald had only been the scapegoat for an entire orchestrated plot to take down the president, who had made many enemies during his short term in office (among other things, by bringing positions closer to the Soviet side). Currently, however, the Kennedy assassination is a matter that is still not at all clear.

One of the most curious facts is that of the “magic bullet”, so called because, according to the official version, it would have entered through the president’s body to come out again, take a curious detour and then penetrate the body of the governor of Texas. John Conally, who was injured. This is, clearly, a very strange trajectory for a bullet.

A simpler way to justify the multiple wounds would be to consider that there were more shots than what was said and, furthermore, from different places, which would mean that Oswald was not the only murderer… In any case, the assassination continues to entail mysteries. that can hardly be clarified; at least, in the near future.

5. Luis Carrero Blanco: mortal blow to Francoism

On December 20, 1973, a huge explosion was heard at the confluence of Claudio Coello and Maldonado streets, in Madrid. Apparently, a gas leak had caused the explosion, which had opened a colossal hole in the pavement (no less than 19 meters long). What exactly had happened? Were there victims?

Yes, there were, but this was not immediately known. At the time of the detonation, the official car of Luis Carrero Blanco, the then president of the government, was passing by that exact point, but his absence suggested that he had managed to avoid the explosion, although it seemed unheard of…

Shortly after, the destroyed car was discovered on the roof of the building that the Society of Jesus had on the street. The vehicle had flown about 40 meters high, and its three occupants had died instantly: the president, his bodyguard and the driver. After the attack (since the detonation had nothing to do with a gas leak, but with kilos and kilos of explosives), there was the terrorist group ETA, which immediately claimed responsibility for the assassination, and even recounted the details of it in the famous book Operation Ogre. How and why we executed Carrero Blanco.

With the death of the president, right-hand man of the dictator Francisco Franco, there was a major collapse of the regime. Franco was losing his greatest support, and the future of the dictatorship was in question. When Franco died, in November 1975, an uncertain path opened up for the history of Spain. The Transition began.