On February 15, 1933 and while the president of the USA; Franklin Roosevelthe had just spoken to Miami’s Bayfront Park, a little man named Josepe Zangarashouts from the back seat of an open tourist car “too many people hungry” and shoots against him.
The US president’s visit to Miami was not designed. It was a brief detour – it was only 45 minutes at his disposal – between the end of his 12 -day cruise, with Vincent Astor’s yacht and boarding a train for the north.
Zangara had gone to the United States from Calabria in 1923, having bitter memories of war and hate for officers and especially for the Italian king. This hatred was also carried to the US, but here it was turning against the rich and the leader of the American state. In his new homeland, he worked as a builder and after receiving the latest documents required to obtain citizenship, joined the Association of Builders and the Republican Party.
His extreme attitude reflected to some extent the rage and frustration that many American workers felt.
At the same time, Zangara suffered from severe abdominal pain. That is why he decided to go to Miami for the first time in 1932, expecting that his warm climate will work healing. The pain was so intense and the way of thinking so special that He thought that if he killed the head of state, President Roosevelt, his pain would not be so sharphaving managed to make someone else suffer much more. In other words, his pain would be “transferred” to his victim’s body, so he would be rid of him, at least not fully. It is certain that in addition to all this, which he claimed in his interrogation, his extreme attitude reflected to some extent the rage and frustration that many American workers felt during the great recession.
Of the six bullets thrown in total, five people were hit, including the Mayor of Chicago, Anton Chermak. The crowd, as soon as they realized what had happened, tried to attack Zangara and launch him. At the same time, the men of the Secret Service shouted at the Roosevelt driver to move the car urgently so that the president could be removed immediately from the spot. However, he stayed on the site until the injured Mayor of Chicago, backed by his companions, was placed in the back seat of the car to be taken immediately to Jackson Memorial Hospital. The calmness shown by Roosevelt during his assassination attempt was the central issue in the headlines of the newspapers the following day, reinforcing his public image as a powerful leader.
When the Mayor of Chicago succumbed to his injuries, Zangara was sentenced to death.
Zangara was tried for attempted murder, and his sentence was initially 80 years in prison. But when the Mayor of Chicago succumbed to his injuries, he was again tried. This time was sentenced to death. He would leave his last breath on March 20, 1933 in the electric chair.
Although the light of celebrity had seen various theories at times, which argued that Zangara’s real goal was the mayor, thus implying the connection of the Italian to organized crime in Chicago, this does not seem to be true.
Column: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poumenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
