Claim: William McKinley died by assassination.

On September 6 , 1901 , William McKinley , the 25th President of the United States , was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo , New York . He was shaking hands with the public when Leon Czolgosz , an anarchist , shot him twice in the abdomen . McKinley died eight days later on September 14 of gangrene caused by the gunshot wounds . He was the third American president to have been assassinated , following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881 .   McKinley had been elected for a second term in 1900 . He enjoyed meeting the public , and was reluctant to accept the security available to his office . Secretary to the President George B. Cortelyou feared that an assassination attempt would take place during a visit to the Temple of Music and took it off the schedule twice . McKinley restored it each time .   Czolgosz had lost his job during the economic Panic of 1893 and turned to anarchism , a political philosophy adhered to by recent killers of foreign leaders . Regarding McKinley as a symbol of oppression , Czolgosz was convinced that it was his duty as an anarchist to kill him . Unable to get near the President during the presidential visit earlier , Czolgosz shot McKinley twice as the President reached to shake his hand in the reception line at the temple . One bullet grazed McKinley ; the other entered his abdomen and was never found .   McKinley initially appeared to be recovering , but took a turn for the worse on September 13 as his wounds became gangrenous , and died early the next morning ; Vice President Theodore Roosevelt succeeded him . After McKinley 's assassination , for which Czolgosz was sentenced to death in the electric chair , Congress passed legislation to officially charge the Secret Service with the responsibility for protecting the President .