On 29 July 1900, King Umberto I of Italy, who succeeded his father Victor Emmanuel II in 1878, was assassinated in Monza at a public ceremony with the streets flagged with tricolours. The king was shot four times by the Italian-American anarchist Gaetano Bresci. Bresci claimed he wanted to avenge the people killed in Milan during the suppression of the riots of May 1898. Umberto I was succeeded by his son Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.