Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States. He was both a politician and an army general. Known as “Old Hickory,” because of his tough personality, Jackson was a polarizing figure.
Even so, it’s hard to believe that one man once attempted to assassinate President Jackson with not one, but two pistols. On January 30, 1835, Jackson was attending a funeral when Richard Lawrence came up to him and fired a pistol at point blank range. The pistol misfired though.
And Lawrence did not have a repeating carbine pistol. So he tossed it aside and pulled out another pistol. He shot that one, but it misfired as well. According to witnesses, President Jackson then beat the man over the head with a cane. Lawrence was later deemed insane, put into an institution and never punished for his assassination attempt. This was the first assassination attempt on an American President.