Capitol’s history of violence

Washington – The storming of the halls of Congress by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters marks the latest episode of violence to darken the US Capitol in a history dating back to a British arson attack in Washington during the war of 1812.

With four lives lost on the Capitol grounds – one woman shot by police and three fatalities attributed by authorities to medical emergencies – Wednesday’s turmoil appeared to rank as the deadliest incident of violence to unfold in and around the citadel of American democracy in 200 years.

The following recounts some acts of violence to flare at the Capitol – shootings, bombings and even an assassination attempt. 1835: In the first known attempt on a US president’s life, a disgruntled house painter tried to shoot Andrew Jackson as he emerged from a funeral in the House chamber. The assailant’s two flintlock derringers both misfired, and an enraged Jackson clubbed the would-be assassin with his walking stick . 1856: An abolitionist senator, Charles Sumner of Massachusetts, was savagely beaten with a cane by his South Carolina colleague, Preston Brooks, on the Senate floor after delivering a speech criticising slavery. 1915: A former Harvard University German language professor detonated three sticks of dynamite in an empty Senate reception room during a holiday recess. The professor, angry that American financiers were aiding the British against Germany during World War I, fled to New York, where he shot and injured banker JP Morgan. He took his own life in jail. 1954: A group of four armed Puerto Rican nationalists indiscriminately opened fire on the House floor from the visitors’ gallery and unfurled a Puerto Rican flag. Five members of Congress were wounded. 1971: A bomb planted by the radical antiwar group Weather Underground to protest the US- backed invasion of Laos was detonated in a restroom on the Senate side of the Capitol, causing extensive damage. 1983: A bomb outside the Senate chamber exploded, blowing the hinges off the door to the office of then-Senate Democratic leader Robert Byrd. A militant leftist group said it retaliated for US military involvement in Lebanon and Grenada. –