Assassin, noun: a person who commits murder; especially; one who murders a politically important person either for hire or from fanatical motives.
Fact: between 1950 & 2000, over 4, 000 assassinations were carried out
- including 40 on heads of state.
Methods: exploding telephones, pipe-guns & bullets made from teeth, aspirin explosives, cobra-venom darts, a rifle that shoots around corners, a 'piss bomb' (10 cups of boiled urine mixed with nitric acid), exploding clams, an 'infernal machine' (a gun that fires 25 bullets at once), samurai swords, karate chops, poisoned umbrellas & a fuel-laden light aircraft. Sometimes even a regular gun.
Targets: popes, politicians, presidents, prime ministers, pop-stars, spin doctors, judges, businessmen, writers, revolutionaries, actors, royals, generals & dictators.
Secret case files: George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Uday Hussein, Ronald Reagan, Joseph Stalin, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King, JFK, RFK, Medgar Evers, Georgi Markov, Woody Harrelson & the Serbian warlord Arkan.
Coroner's verdict: The definitive book on assassination, ' How to Kill' shows that sometimes, one murder can change the world.