On This Day. 1881: President Garfield was shot in the back as he prepared to board a train in Washington. He didn't seem too concerned, telling bystanders “I don't think this is serious. I will live.” But thanks in part to sloppy medical care, the president died 79 days later /1 
Garfield, the second of four presidents to be assassinated, was succeeded by VP Chester Arthur. Assassin Charles Guiteau was hanged. Garfield had been in office just 119 days when he was shot /2
Speaking of presidential assassinations, Robert Todd Lincoln was at the scene of three of them: his father’s in 1865, Garfield’s in 1881 and William McKinley’s in 1901. Another coincidence: His life was once saved by Edwin Booth, the brother of his father's assassin /3
Unlike Ford's Theatre and Dallas's Dealey Plaza, where Lincoln and JFK, respectively, were killed, the site of President Garfield's assassination - once a train station - is all but forgotten today: 6th and Constitution NW. McKinley's murder site in Buffalo is also long gone
