Mr. Fasano’s English Class

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On this day in 1981 John Hinkley, Jr. attempted to assassinate President Reagan outside the Washington Hilton Hotel in Washington, D.C.. Reagan and three others, including Press Secretary James Brady, were shot and wounded by Hinckley, who had a history of mental illness.

The motivation behind Hinckley’s attack was an obsession with actress Jodie Foster, whom he was trying to impress so that she would fall in love with him.

Since the assassination of President Kennedy, which had not been recorded by any professional cameramen, television services were much more insistent about taping as many of a president’s public appearances as possible. In this case, the entire incident was captured on video by at least five cameramen, including all of the major broadcast networks. (The new Cable News Network had been broadcasting Reagan’s speech live moments earlier, and its crew was still inside the hotel). Upon his arrest, Hinckley famously asked the officers whether that night’s Academy Awards ceremony would be postponed due to the shooting, and indeed it was — it aired the next evening.
(Text from Wikipedia)