Zangara, Guiseppe

(1900-1933)

   Born in Italy, Giuseppe Zangara immigrated to the United States in 1923. He worked for a time in New Jersey and California before settling in Miami, Florida. He became a naturalized citizen in 1929. Depressed due to lack of employment and ill-health, Zanagara first blamed President Herbert Hoover and then President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt. When Roosevelt visited Florida in February 1933, Zangara fired several shots at him in an attempted assassination. He missed but wounded several onlookers and the mayor of Chicago, Anton Cermak, who was meeting Roosevelt. Initially sentenced to 84 years in prison, after Cermak died from his wounds, Zangara was sentenced to death. He was executed on 20 March 1933.