page_title: Assassination
section_title: The World Wars
hierarchical_section_title: Assassination / In modern history / The World Wars
context_page_description: Assassination is the murder of an important or popular person. Usually the person is a political leader, like the head of a country or a political party. Assassinations are usually done for political reasons or for payment. A person who assassinates someone is called an assassin.
  Throughout history, assassinations have happened for many different reasons. Sometimes assassinations have been used to take over governments. Other times, assassinations have been used to kill military leaders during wars, or for religious reasons. Some assassins want revenge, or just want to be famous.
context_section_description: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated in 1914.  Some historians say this assassination started World War I.
  In the 1930s and 1940s, Josef Stalin's NKVD assassinated many people outside of the Soviet Union, including Leon Trotsky.  These were mostly people who Stalin thought were against him or could take power from him.  He wanted to make sure to keep the power he had, so he killed many of his opponents.
  Between 1934 and 1944, different individuals and groups tried 27 different times to assassinate Adolf Hitler, the leader of Nazi Germany during The Holocaust and World War II.  These people wanted to stop Hitler from taking over so many countries and killing so many people.  However, he always survived.
  During World War II, the Allies used assassinations to kill important Nazi and Japanese leaders:
  Czech soldiers assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, one of the most important people in the Nazi government (1942)
  The United States Army assassinated Japanese Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, an important military leader (1943)
  Polish rebels assassinated top Nazi leaders whenever they could
caption: Hitler's conference room after some of his own soldiers tried to kill him
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