All language subtitles for The.UnXplained.S07E17.1080p.WEB.h264-EDITH_track3_[eng]

WILLIAM SHATNER: Lone gunmen
that shape the future

with one pull of the trigger.

Mysterious assassins brainwashed
to commit shocking murders.

And legendary killers
who have taken

their deadly secrets
to the grave.

What do historical figures like
Julius Caesar, Attila the Hun,

and President Abraham Lincoln
have in common?

Well, for one thing,
they were all formidable leaders

who faced death
not on a bloody battlefield

but instead
at the hands of an assassin.

Since the dawn of civilization,
hitmen of all types

have shaped our world by
eliminating political leaders,

silencing whistleblowers,

and killing the competition.

But what's the true motivation

to assassinate someone
in cold blood?

Is it money, ideology,

or how about a simple thirst
for vengeance?

Well, that is what
we'll try and find out.

♪ ♪

Some individuals have made
their mark on history

not because of great
scientific achievements

or works of art
but for cold-blooded murder.

People like James Earl Ray,

who gunned down
civil rights activist

Martin Luther King Jr.

Nathuram Godse killed the leader

of the Indian
independence movement,

Mohandas Gandhi,
at point-blank range.

Mark David Chapman shot
legendary musician John Lennon

shortly after
receiving his autograph.

They're not just killers.

They are assassins.

An assassination
is distinguished

from an ordinary murder

when somebody
wants to kill a major figure,

usually a political figure,
could also be a cultural figure.

The reasons
that people assassinate

high-profile individuals
are many.

They can vary all the way
from somebody being disturbed,

to someone
who has a distinct agenda,

a purpose to actually
change history.

And they may have to do
with seeking to attain

personal fame or recognition
to make a statement.

There is no question
that an assassination

of a major public figure

generally has
tremendous consequences,

and they can change a country
and they can change the world.

SHATNER:
While history is filled
with stories of rulers, leaders,

and religious figures falling
at the hand of an assassin...

...there is a time,
not so long ago,

where the deadly practice
was so prevalent,

it is sometimes referred to

as the golden age
of assassinations.

The period between 1878,
roughly, and 1914

has been termed the golden age
of assassinations.

And that's
a golden age driven by

a political ideology, anarchism.

Anarchism was a system
of political belief

from a revolutionary manifesto
that basically argued

that things like states,
governments,

hierarchies,
now kings, presidents,

all symbols of authority

were the fundamental evil
of the world.

MICHAEL NEWTON:
Anarchists agreed
they would follow

a new way of kind of
pursuing revolution.

You wouldn't try
to influence people to vote.

You would plant a bomb.

You would shoot a politician.

And that would make
ordinary people feel

that the world was unstable.

And the more unstable
they felt the world was,

the closer you were
to revolution and change.

ANNIKA MOMBAUER:
A large number
of monarchs and politicians

were assassinated,
largely by anarchists.

This starts in 1878

with a failed
assassination attempt

on the German Kaiser Wilhelm I.

Then it is the Russian Tsar
Alexander II,

in 1881, who was assassinated
by a Russian anarchist.

You then have
the French president.

All falling victim
to-to anarchist, um, assassins.

Even the United States did not
escape this wave of anarchy,

and President McKinley

was assassinated
in Buffalo, New York

in 1901 by an anarchist.

If you don't agree with someone,

you-you-you just try
and assassinate them.

SHATNER:
Across the globe, anarchists,
revolutionaries, and terrorists

were using assassination
to destabilize governments

and overthrown existing
political structures.

Yet no one could've predicted

that the murder
of one aristocrat

would lead to the death
of millions around the world.

The occupation
of this capital city

by the Austro-Hungarian Empire

has created heated tension
with young Bosnian Serbs.

In anticipation
of a formal visit

from Archduke Franz Ferdinand,

the heir to the throne
of Austria-Hungary,

a secret military society

prepares to execute
a deadly plan.

An organization called
the Black Hand,

also known as
Unification or Death,

it was several prominent members
of the Serbian army,

including the head

of the Serbian military
intelligence service.

So, on the day,

a group of six main would-be
assassins positioned themselves

around the city of Sarajevo
in strategic places.

The itinerary of the visit
had been publicized beforehand,

so it was clear which route
the cars would take

that the royal couple
were traveling in,

and they positioned themselves
along the route.

And the first would-be assassin
threw a grenade at the car,

which bounced off and exploded

behind the car that the
royal couple were traveling in.

But the archduke
and his wife were unscathed

and drove to the city hall
where they took stock

and decided what they would do.

NEWTON:
One of the assassins,
a guy called Gavrilo Princip,

basically thought,
"Well, we blew it,"

and he went to have coffee
in a café.

And he was sitting outside
the café drinking his coffee,

and Franz Ferdinand's car

stopped in front of him
on accident.

So, he just wandered over
with his gun

and shot the archduke and his
wife on the spur of the moment.

The assassination
of Franz Ferdinand

is one of the strangest
assassinations ever,

because it's the one
which really brings out

how much history
is about accident.

If the car had
gone somewhere else,

maybe 20 million people
wouldn't have been killed

in the First World War.

SHATNER:
In retaliation for
Franz Ferdinand's assassination,

on July 28, 1914,
the Austro-Hungarian Empire

declares war on Serbia

and marks the beginning
of World War I.

The four-year war would be
fought on a global scale

never seen before
in human history.

Some 20 million soldiers died,

and some 21 million civilians

perished as well
in this conflict.

I don't think Gavrilo Princip,

when he fired
those two fateful shots,

could have imagined
that some 40 million deaths

would result from the deaths
of these two people.

If, in fact, the assassination
hadn't taken place,

would there have been
a First World War?

Would history have developed
along the same lines?

We don't know the answer.

So, I think this
really shows you how

relatively unimportant people

who otherwise would never
have been known to us

could have such
devastating consequences.

Robert F. Kennedy announces
his victory in the California

presidential primary
to a crowd of supporters.

But hope will soon turn
to tragedy.

As Kennedy makes his way
through the hotel kitchen

on his way
to a press conference...

...he's ambushed by an assassin.

SPENCE:
A gunman appeared,

later identified
as Sirhan Sirhan,

wielding a .22 caliber pistol,

and, by all accounts,
began firing at Kennedy,

and rather wildly, in this case.

You seem to have
a mad gunman, a lone nut,

with unclear motivations who had
gotten into this situation.

Kennedy was hit,
fell to the floor.

He had been shot three times.

TATE:
Sirhan fired all eight shots

in the chamber of his revolver.

There was screaming.
There was panic. There was fear.

There were bodies on the floor,
and one of them

was Senator Robert Kennedy.

24 hours later,
Kennedy died from those wounds.

SHATNER:
Sirhan Sirhan, a 24-year-old
Palestinian immigrant,

was quickly apprehended

for the assassination
of Robert Kennedy.

Yet, remarkably,
after his arrest,

the gunman claimed
to have no memory

of his murderous rampage.

BAKER:
Sirhan was glassy-eyed

and essentially unresponsive

after he was arrested.
He was completely placid.

He didn't seem to have any idea
what had happened,

had no idea why he was arrested.

It was definitely strange.

The last thing he can remember,

earlier that evening,

Sirhan was having
a cup of coffee

with an attractive girl who was
wearing a polka dot dress

in another part
of the Ambassador Hotel.

After that, it's a blank
until he woke up

with people jumping on his head

and trying to wrestle
the gun from his hands.

A succession of psychiatrists
and psychologists,

both for the defense

and for the prosecution,
examined Sirhan.

They all accepted
that his amnesia

was absolutely genuine.

And many of them said,
at the time of the shooting,

Sirhan was acting
under post-hypnotic suggestion.

In other words,
he had been hypnotized

and was shooting as a result.

SHATNER:
Sirhan was convicted
of first-degree murder

and is currently serving
a life sentence.

But is it really possible
to hypnotize someone

into becoming
an unknowing assassin?

Well, from 1953 to 1973,

there was a shocking
top-secret CIA program

that seemed to have explored
that very question.

Its codename was MKUltra.

The MKUltra program
is a very weird

moment in American history.

And the aim of MKUltra
was to find out

how far you can manipulate
the psychology of individuals

and get them to do
what you want them to do.

How deep it went
is very uncertain.

But that there were people
in the CIA who had this aim

is a matter
of historical record.

BAKER:
In the early 1950s,
the CIA was deeply interested

in combating what they perceived
as mind control research

by the Chinese and the Russians,
in particular,

and they embarked on their own
program to explore the mind.

But in the course
of this research,

the U.S. government
made efforts to experiment

with so-called brainwashing
of individuals

through a variety of means.

One was hypnosis
and the other was the use

of psychoactive drugs.

LSD, in particular, was
proven to be highly effective

at putting people
in a state of mind

where they could be
post-hypnotically

or otherwise suggested
to take violent action.

Somebody who, without fully
knowing what they're doing,

or even knowing at all
what they're doing,

can go out and kill.

They did experimentation
on unwitting individuals

who had not provided consent.

It was later agreed
that this was unethical,

immoral, and illegal.

SHATNER:
In 1973, CIA director
Richard Helms ordered

all MKUltra documents
to be destroyed.

But just four years later,

a Freedom of
Information Act request

led to the discovery
of around 20,000 secret files

that managed to survive
the purge.

And while the true extent of
the CIA's mind control program

will never be known,
is it possible

they actually created
a brainwashed assassin?

Now, among the MKUltra documents
that survive,

we have a report--
an internal report--

in which a woman
under hypnotic control,

who had previously expressed
a morbid fear of firearms,

took a gun, held it
to the head of another woman,

and pulled the trigger,

and then, subsequently,
had no memory

of what it was
that she had done.

Now, this was all just a test
and clinical circumstances.

But it was,
by their accounts, done.

Which sounds,
just for the sake of argument,

eerily like what
Sirhan Sirhan claimed,

that he had no memory
of what had been done.

BAKER:
We don't know whether Sirhan
was involved

with the MKUltra program,

but the possibility
certainly exists.

We do know that many individuals

were put through
very extreme experimentation.

And it does appear to be
scientifically possible

to utilize various techniques,

including hypnosis
and applying psychoactive drugs,

to create somebody who kills

without being knowledgeable
about doing that.

SPENCE:
Imagine the possibilities
if only a half of this,

a third of it,
if 10% of it worked.

And most of the records
have been wiped.

And that itself
should tell you something.

And I don't think
it was just because

there were things
that were done illegally.

It was because
there was stuff in that

that was never
supposed to be known.

You're left with
haunting possibilities.

It's frightening to think
that mind control

can activate a person
to commit a murder.

Yet, for centuries, specialized
training of another kind

has created what many believe
are the perfect assassins.

It's a group of killers

rumored to possess
supernatural powers

that allow them
to stealthily and silently

eliminate their targets.

SHATNER:
This town is home
to the Iga-ryu Museum

that houses over 400 artifacts
and deadly weapons

once used by the most iconic
assassins in all of history...

the ninja.

STEAVU:
The ninja were master assassins.

Their name translates
to "hidden ones,"

or "the concealed ones."

Um, traditionally, in Japan,

they were referred to
as shinobi.

They emerged in Japan probably
around the 14th or 15th century

during a period of
prolonged civil war

between various daimyos
or local regional lords

vying for supremacy.

The skill set of ninjas
was mainly assassination

as well as espionage,
infiltration, subterfuge.

The ninja arts, or ninjutsu,

was seen by the samurai
as completely dishonorable,

but the ninja had
no qualms about this,

and their main focus
was achieving their objective,

uh, no matter what.

SHATNER:
The ninja, or shinobi,

made their mark on history

from the 12th
to the 17th century.

Today, the ninja are long gone.

But, remarkably, there's still
one shinobi left in Japan.

His name is Jinichi Kawakami.

(speaking Japanese)

(translated): I come from
a family that has passed down

what is known as the "shinobi's
techniques" of the Koga region.

In the old family tradition...

...parents, grandfather,
and even grandmother

passed down these teachings
to their children

and grandchildren,

and I learned it the same way.

Teaching starts around age six.

As muscles and bones develop,

we gradually progress
to more intense training

and endurance exercises
that require great patience.

Shinobis are often associated
with assassins.

A shinobi is someone
who does things

that are not visible
to the public.

It involves techniques
related to military espionage,

strategy, and surprise attacks.

SHATNER:
While ninjas are often
thought of as assassins,

they functioned
primarily as spies

trained in the arts
of stealth and deception.

Their mastery of weapons
made them the most feared

special operatives
in feudal Japan.

STEAVU:
Ninjas were famous for

disguising themselves
as priests,

sometimes even as maidens,

as laborers, and as merchants

blending in with
the general population,

and then they could strike
at the opportune moment

to hit their target.

Their weapons, too,
were unsuspicious.

The traditional ninja sword

is considerably shorter
than the samurai sword,

which they could carry
with them very easily,

hide them, if necessary.

They could take a household item

or tools used in agriculture

so they would not
attract attention

if they were walking
down the streets with them.

And then turn it
into a deadly weapon.

As for methods,
the most common approach

was to injure someone
using conventional weapons.

Then there are techniques

such as administering poison
through the bloodstream.

They were extremely skilled
at using gunpowder.

There are various techniques,

such as mixing flammable
substances with water,

creating explosions...

...and even mixing substances
to produce poisonous gases.

Ninjutsu is a military art.

For that reason, I have stated

that I will no longer teach
the aspects of ninjutsu.

SHATNER:
While the ninja were very real,

to this day, there's still
very little we know about them

because their deadly techniques
were passed down in secret.

There were different families
that that supported ninjutsu,

and these families
trained in these arts.

But nobody knew what went on
inside their training.

These secrets were passed down
from father to son,

from uncle to nephew,
and inside of secret schools.

And they had
to write blood oaths

to say
they wouldn't pass them on.

It was only later
that these documents

started to be written.

So, we don't have
many documents for the ninja.

But what we do know is that,
once a ninja had targeted you,

there was very little chance
of survival.

KAWAKAMI:
It was extremely rare
to keep records,

as they were confidential,
and the techniques themselves

could not be disclosed
to others.

There was a risk involved,
and keeping them secret

was essential for survival,

as revealing them to enemies
would increase the danger.

Therefore, a culture of secrecy
naturally developed.

SHATNER:
While the ninja may have hidden

their history, training,
and techniques,

there may be
an even greater secret

yet to be revealed

because,
according to Japanese folklore,

it is said that the ninjas
were imbued

with supernatural powers.

CUMMINS:
The ninja really, really engaged

with the dark arts of magic.

What they would do
is build up their spells,

get their ingredients,
and then, before their mission,

create something that would
allow them to see in the dark.

They would be wearing talismans,

magical hairpins that
they would put in their hair

to help them
with the art of invisibility.

They believed
they could bring the power

of the moon down
to enclose them in black clouds.

And in this way,
they believed they could get in

and kill their target.

-(blade slices)
-(man grunts)

They believed this,
and the people

around them believed this.

STEAVU:
This image of the ninja as being
endowed with supernatural skills

was historically not seen
to be a kind of legend or lore,

it was actually believed,
uh, by the populace,

and as a result, uh,
they were terrified of them.

So, because of the lack of
records surrounding the ninja,

it's a great mystery

to what extent
we even understand the ninjas

and the full extent
of their abilities

and to what extent
their abilities might have been

somehow divine or supernatural.

This massive part
that is unknown about them

could be a lot more
than what we ever imagined.

The lore of the ninjas
and their silent,

supernatural powers
has certainly earned them

their iconic reputation.

But when it comes to the
deadliest slayers in history,

there is one group
whose skills were so feared,

their name became the origin

of the word "assassin."

SHATNER:
The feared
warrior-sultan Saladin

and his mighty armies surround
this imposing mountain fortress

as they continue their conquest
of the Middle East.

But these forces
would be no match

to the powerful guardians
of this castle,

a mysterious
and deadly Muslim sect

known as the hashshashin,

or, quite simply, the assassins.

STEAVU:
During the 12th century,
Saladin set up a camp

to encircle
their fortress in Masyaf,

which was a base of operations

for the order of the assassins,
and he set up a siege.

You know,
people inside the castle

would be starved to death.

One night, he went to bed,
as he usually did,

in his tent in the camp,

and he always took
extreme precautions

to defend against an eventual
assassination attempt.

He had a system
with, uh, little bells that

would be triggered if someone
passed a certain perimeter,

and the tent itself
was heavily guarded.

That night, however, he awoke,
feeling a presence.

When he opened his eyes, he
didn't see anyone next to him,

but he did see a dagger
next to his bed,

stabbed through a note.

And in the note, it said,
"If you do not lift the siege,

next time, you will be dead."

As a result,
Saladin lifted the siege.

The message that had been
sent to him was clear.

"If we wanted you dead, you
would no longer be breathing."

SHATNER:
The hashshashin operated
in Syria, Persia, Turkey,

and throughout the Middle East

from the 11th
to the 13th century.

The word "assassin" is literally
derived from their name,

based on their mission
and menacing presence.

KEVIN RUSHBY:
The assassins,
their story begins in 1090,

when a character called
Hasan-i Sabbah

goes to a Castle Alamut,

which is in the mountains
now in modern Iran.

He hides himself away
in this castle

and trains young men
to be killers.

His idea is to build a force

of young men

who can assassinate political
leaders amongst their enemies.

Almost immediately,
they have a fantastic success

where two assassins
managed to kill

a character called
Nizam al-Mulk,

who is the de facto leader of
the Islamic world at the time.

That sends shock waves
through the Islamic world.

After Hasan-i Sabbah
died in 1123,

there were a number of leaders

who took over and carried on
the traditions.

So, they had an enormous impact.

LIU:
The assassins
were bringers of death.

They begin trying to expand
their influence

by seizing more fortresses,

so they can form
a coherent network.

They also start
sending out people

who essentially went on
suicide missions to assassinate

political enemies,
ranging from local judges

to the rulers and leaders
of entire cities.

And they're using daggers
to hit their targets.

You had no idea where they might
come, when they might come.

All your life's work might
come to an end

with a single blow of a dagger,

and that's always
a very scary thing,

especially
when put together with

just how fanatical they were.

SHATNER:
How did the leaders
of the hashshashin

inspire such devotion?

Perhaps clues can be found
with intriguing claims

made by the famed
Venetian merchant and explorer

Marco Polo, whose journey
through the Middle East

in the 13th century
was chronicled

in The Travels of Marco Polo.

Marco Polo mentions
the assassins

and talks about the legend
of the Old Man of the Mountains,

this character Hasan-i Sabbah,
and how he would command

his young men to go and kill
for political reasons.

Marco Polo mentions
how they would

leap off towers at the command
of Hasan-i Sabbah.

He would just tell them,
you know, "jump,"

and they would jump off the top
of a castle and kill themselves.

LIU:
Marco Polo comes
to the Middle East in a world

where there's already a lot
of lurid tales circulating

about the assassins and what
they represent and who they are.

And he claims in his book that

the Old Man in the Mountain--
he recruits young men,

drugs them with hashish,

takes them to a pleasure garden
in Alamut,

accosted with all sorts
of beautiful woman,

given all sorts
of luxurious food and drink.

And then, once they've
sobered up a little,

the Old Man in the Mountain
would say, "Look,

"what you've experienced
was paradise,

"and if you assassinate
the people who I don't like,

then you can experience
this paradise for eternity."

And so that has played a large
role in creating this image of

how the assassins,
or hashshashin,

would be in drug-induced hazes

as they went around
killing their enemies.

SHATNER:
Were the hashshashin really
transformed into fanatics

from drug-fueled experiences
with hashish,

a concentrated form of cannabis,

in some kind of pleasure garden?

While it was a story
told by both their enemies

and Europeans alike,
no one knows the whole truth.

But one of the greatest
mysteries surrounding the group

that helped coin
the term "assassin..."

...is how they managed
to survive for nearly 200 years.

(man grunts)

The assassins were without
armies and without wealth

and yet mysteriously
survived for centuries.

The assassins were hunted and
hated by rival Islamic factions.

Historians believe the assassins
were among the first

to wield assassination
as a long-term strategy.

It's entirely possible that fear

was the assassins'
most powerful weapon.

They didn't need an army,
just a reputation.

While the hashshashin may be
gone, the fact that their name

continues to invoke fear
centuries after their demise

is a testament
to their deadly legacy.

But some ancient assassins
were so shadowy,

we're still not certain
if they actually existed.

Like in the case of
a religious cult based in India

during the 13th century,
who many claim were responsible

for the murder
of more than two million people.

SHATNER:
India. The 1830s.

The British East India Company,

an organization that began
as a private trade corporation,

is now the greatest political
and military power

in all of India.

Commanding a private army
of 250,000 soldiers,

they now occupy,
control, and govern

much of the Indian subcontinent.

But during
their colonial conquest,

the British are faced with
a mysterious group of killers

they call the Thuggee,
or simply the thugs.

The thugs were
a criminal fraternity,

or a Mafia,
who operated in India.

The thugs' way of working was
to travel the roads of India,

the byways,
and when they came across

groups of travelers
who had wealth,

they would befriend them
and start traveling with them.

They would sometimes
spend weeks

worming their way
into the confidence of groups.

And then,
at a prearranged signal,

they would get
into position and pounce.

(horse neighs)

One man would grab
the hands of the victim.

Another might kick
the feet away.

And then, finally,
a long scarf--

the rumal, they called it--

would be thrown around the neck,

and they'd strangle the victim.

They were so practiced at it,
they could take out

whole groups of people
simultaneously.

Once they'd killed everybody,

they'd strip them
and search their baggage.

And then they would bury
the bodies, sometimes alive.

Before first light,
they would be gone.

They were assassins
in the way they worked.

They used stealth.
They used disguise.

They would befriend you.
Their weapons were concealed.

But there was no political
aspect to what they were doing.

They were in it for the money.

SHATNER:
It's been estimated
that the Thuggee,

who cemented the word "thug"
in the English language,

robbed and strangled
millions of victims.

But the British authorities
in India believed

this shadowy group of assassins

killed their victims for
much more than financial gain.

It was believed they were
performing ritual sacrifices.

STEAVU:
The Thuggees were rumored
to be devotees

of the Hindu goddess Kali,

who is, uh, commonly associated

with, uh, time, with death,
and destruction as well.

And they viewed their actions
as a way of offering

these sacrifices to the goddess

in order to stave off a larger-
scale destruction of humanity.

So Kali would need
to be propitiated

with these sacrifices,

with the sacrifices
of human lives,

and the Thuggees saw themselves

as fulfilling this
for the goddess.

RUSHBY:
The image of Kali
that is commonly seen

is of a woman with
wild black hair, four arms,

one of them carrying a severed
head, another a bloody knife,

wearing a garland
of human skulls

and a skirt of human arms.

It's a pretty terrifying image.

SHATNER:
Did the thugs really assassinate
millions of travelers

in order to satiate
a bloodthirsty goddess?

Perhaps the answer can be found
with the man who was

largely responsible for
the eradication of the Thuggee.

A British officer
with the East India Company

named Captain William Sleeman.

Banditry wasn't unusual,
but this seemed to be

something more than that.

And William Sleeman applied
what you might call

more modern
criminological methods

to try to deal with this.

And the way that Sleeman
actually broke up Thuggee

was through pretty much
the same method that the FBI

uses to break up the Mafia.

You get informers,
you catch people,

and you give them
a lighter sentence

to rat out their comrades.

It works.

There was a thug which was
arrested by the name of Behram.

He claimed that
he had been a witness

to more than 900 stranglings

and that he personally had
strangled thousands of people.

The activities
only became visible

when you began to collect
and collate information.

RUSHBY:
When Sleeman started to capture
the thugs, he became convinced

that they were a religious cult
sacrificing victims to Kali.

And I think those British
in the 19th century

took this
as a sort of demonic cult.

The public hysteria in Europe
grew to such an extent

that it was totally
accepted as truth

that the thugs were a cult
of religious sacrificers

who were strangling people
by the million in India.

The question is, was that true
and to what extent?

I mean, some historians believe
that thug gangs didn't exist.

And we'll never know, of course,

how many of the men
Sleeman arrested

were actually stranglers and
how many were innocent people.

We will never know for sure.

(crowd cheering, applauding)

SHATNER:
Republican presidential
nominee Donald Trump

is giving a speech to a crowd
on an outdoor stage

when suddenly...

(gunfire)

MAN:
Get down, get down,
get down, get down.

SHATNER:
...multiple gunshots ring out.

(crowd screaming)

BAKER:
On July 13, 2024,

Donald Trump,
then a candidate for president

of the United States,
was speaking in an open field.

As he was speaking,
a young man who had climbed

onto a roof fired at Trump.

(gunfire)

MAN:
Get down! Get down!

BAKER:
And miraculously, Trump turned
his head at the last second,

and the bullet
merely grazed his ear.

That man then was shot by
a Secret Service sharpshooter.

The recent attempt
at assassinating Donald Trump,

had that succeeded, America

and probably the world
would be very different places.

SHATNER:
While Donald Trump
would escape with his life

and become the 47th president
of the United States,

his attempted assassin,

20-year-old Thomas Matthew
Crooks, was shot dead.

To this day
his motives remain unknown.

But he's far from the only
assassin in American history

that still raises
unanswered questions.

What do we really know
about the assassination

of President John F. Kennedy?

The man officially credited
with killing JFK

was Lee Harvey Oswald.

Who was Lee Harvey Oswald? Well,
it depends upon who you ask.

Loner, misfit, communist,

marine, all-American boy.

That's still a matter
of ongoing debate.

NEWTON:
Of all the assassins I know,
James Earl Ray,

who assassinated
Martin Luther King,

he is the most enigmatic.

It's really unclear
what was going on with him,

why he did it, did he act alone?

It's a secret that's-that's
gone to the grave,

and I think we'll never know.

-(crowd screaming)
-(gunfire)

TATE:
Do we know why
there were two assassins

who tried to kill
President Gerald Ford in 1975?

We spend and have spent
huge amounts of time and money

exploring how assassins
are able to shoot at

and/or kill their victims.

We spend relatively
little time examining why.

SHATNER:
While the true motives of many
assassins remain enigmatic,

the most unsettling truth

is that they strike
without warning.

When will another
deadly assassin

unleash their vengeance on
a person of power and influence

and, through unspeakable
tragedy, shape the future?

It's difficult to know
what would happen today

if a high-profile person
were assassinated.

We would hope that
an event like this

would not have a disastrous
effect on American democracy.

But the idea that
the assassination of leaders

is a thing of the past,
I think, is clearly wrong.

NEWTON:
Stories of assassination--
they remain puzzling.

They remain uncertain.

-(gunshot)
-And I think people
are always going to delve

into them more deeply...

(gunfire)

...to really unpack the nuances,

the hiddenness, the strangeness

of these kind
of history-changing events.

They really do matter.

(gunshot)

The idea that an assassin

can change the course of history
is both profound

and deeply chilling.

What would our world
be like if the bullets

aimed at JFK had missed
on that fateful day in Dallas

or if Archduke Ferdinand
had escaped his hit man?

Unfortunately, we'll never know.

But one thing is certain.

As long as humans posture
for power and political gain,

or simply need their secrets
kept quiet,

there will come a day
when an assassin

makes another deadly mark
on history.

And their motives and methods

may forever remain unexplained.

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