Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.
Chat with a librarian, Monday through Friday, 12-2 pm Eastern Time (except Federal Holidays).
Chronicling America is a searchable digital collection of historic newspaper pages through 1963 sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress.
Follow ChronAm by subscribing to email alerts and RSS feeds.
Also, see the Directory of U.S. Newspapers in American Libraries, a searchable index to newspapers published in the United States since 1690, which helps researchers identify what titles exist for a specific place and time, and how to access them.
President William McKinley (1843-1901) dies on September 14, 1901 of complications from bullet wounds inflicted by Leon Czolgosz. Czolgosz, an anarchist, shot the President during one of his public appearances at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. Initially doctors believed that President McKinley would survive the assassination attempt even though only one bullet was able to be removed. Read more about it!
The information in this guide focuses on primary source materials found in the digitized historic newspapers from the digital collection Chronicling America.
The timeline below highlights important dates related to this topic and a section of this guide provides some suggested search strategies for further research in the collection.
| September 6, 1901 | President William McKinley is shot at the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, NY. Anarchist Leon Czolgosz is arrested in connection with the attack. |
|---|---|
| September 14, 1901 | McKinley dies of complications from his bullet wounds. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt assumes the presidency. |
| September 15, 1901 | A funeral train carrying McKinley’s casket travels from Buffalo to the Capitol in Washington, DC, and finally to Ohio, where McKinley is buried. |
| September 23, 1901 | Czolgosz’s trial begins. Three days later, the jury finds him guilty and sentences him to death. |
| October 29, 1901 | Czolgosz is executed. |
