Women can be just as deadly as men. In fact, when they’re fighting for something they think is important, you’d better watch out.
Now, not all of the women here had noble goals. But what they all have in common is that they thought the answers lied in assassinating the men they thought were wrong.
1. Valerie Solanas shot Andy Warhol
Valier Solanas pitched a play to artist Andy Warhol, but he rejected her. Then, she assumed Warhol was stealing her work, so she decided to kill him.
She failed, but she tried.
And on the day of the assassination attempt, Solanas told people she planned to shoot Warhol in order to get her play produced. She did fire three shots at Warhol, one of which hit him.
Solanas was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia which shortened her sentence to three years, of which she served only one.
2. Sara Jane Moore attempted to shoot the President
In September 1975, President Gerald R. Ford survived two attempts on his life while visiting California. On September 5, Lynette Fromme tried to shoot the President in Sacramento. Two weeks later, on September 22, Sara Jane Moore tried to shoot him in San Francisco.
Moore’s gun was faulty, her shot missing her intended target. A bystander tried to take the gun from her which caused a second shot that hit someone else, who survived. Moore was sentenced to life in prison but was released after 32 years in 2007.
3. Lynette Fromme pulled a gun on the president
Lynette Fromme was part of the Manson Gang. She was known as “Squeaky,” and she’d previously been involved in murder cases.
It was in 1975 when Fromme went to Capitol Park to discuss the California Redwoods with President Gerald Ford.
When Fromme drew her weapon and pointed it at the President, the Secret Service agents were quick to stop her. Fromme received a life sentence but was released in 2009.
4. Khioniya Guseva stabbed Rasputin
Khioniya Guseva was famous for having no nose, but her attempt on the life of Gregori Rasputin had her reportedly shouting that she’d killed the Anti-Christ.
Guseva attacked Rasputin in 1914 as he was leaving his home, stabbing him in the abdomen.
But Rasputin didn’t die and Guseva was placed in an asylum for three years.
5. Marie Sukloff tried to blow up the Russian Governor-General
Marie Sukloff targeted Fyodor Dubasov, a Russian Governor-General who abused Jewish citizens. She experienced the downfall of Tsarist Russia, seeing firsthand the rampant corruption and cruelty inflicted on people.
Conflicting reports about her 1914 assassination attempt had some sources omitting Sukloff’s involvement while others pointed at Sukloff for the explosion. In her autobiography, Sukloff admitted to throwing a bomb through the window of Dubasov’s carriage as revenge for his violence.
6. Kim Hyon-hui bombed a plane
In 1987, Kim Hyon-hui was part of a North Korean spy network with a mission to blow up Korean Air Flight 858. The plane was flying between Baghdad, Iraq, and Seoul, South Korea. Hyon-hui was told that if she was able to fulfill her last assignment, she could live in peace with her family.
Kim and another spy were able to leave a bomb aboard the plane before getting off in Abu Dhabi. They were arrested with Kim unable to commit suicide using cyanide, unlike her fellow spy.
She was believed to have been brainwashed by the North Korean government, which ultimately lifted her death sentence.
7. Brigitte Mohnhaupt was accused of killing many powerful men
Brigette Mohnhaupt was associated with organizations like the Socialist Patients’ Collective and the Red Army Faction. She was accused of the killings and attempts on the lives of a banker, a US general, and a chief federal prosecutor.
The assassination of Juergen Ponto took place on July 30, 1977. He was the chief executive of a major bank.
Mohnhaupt, along with two others, rang Ponto’s door offering him a bouquet of roses before inviting him to tea. As Ponto invited them into his home, the trio shot him and fled the scene.
8. Judith of Bethulia wanted to make a point
More parable than a historical account, the biblical Judith believed that God would save her and her country from their conquerors. So together with a maid, she set out to kill Holofernes, an enemy general.
One night, after the general was out drunk, she entered his tent and beheaded him. In the end, her country was spared from the enemy.
9. Violet Gibson tried to shoot Mussolini
Violet Gibson was an Anglo-Irish aristocrat who attempted to shoot Benito Mussolini, the fascist leader of Italy in 1926.
The attempt happened after his speech on modern medicine in Rome, Italy.
Gibson fired at Mussolini twice, the first shot only grazing him, and the second one a misfire.
Many others claimed that she was insane since she had no clear motive for shooting Mussolini. Gibson did live the remainder of her life in a mental asylum after her assassination attempt. Mussolini requested that Gibson be released without charge.
10. A teenage Fanny Kaplan, the young revolutionary
Fanny Kaplan was a member of the “Socialist-Revolutionaries” in Russia and a political activist at a young age. She was just 16 when she was arrested for her involvement with a bomb plot. She served time in a Serbian work camp where she lost most of her sight. But her resolve was stronger.
Kaplan disliked Vladimir Lenin due to the conflict between the Socialist-Revolutionaries and the Bolsheviks. She shot Lenin three times after a meeting at the Hammer and Sickle but he survived.
Kaplan was executed in 1918.
11. Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias poisoned an Emperor’s wine
Roman Emperor Commodus’ mistress Marcia Aurelia Ceionia Demetrias conspired with his advisors to orchestrate an assassination attempt on the Emperor.
Marcia poisoned his wine, causing Commodus to vomit. He didn’t die but in his weakened state, his fitness coach finished him off by strangulation on New Years Day in 193 CE.
12. Idoia Lopez Riano earned her nickname
The tigress, Idoia Lopez Riano, renounced violence, but she did manage to take out 23 people in the 1980s. Her goal was Basque independence from Spain.
Lopez’s nickname La Tigresa came from her rumored sexual prowess since she would seduce policemen before attacks.
Lopez was apprehended in France and handed a 1,500-year prison sentence in 2003.
13. Shi Jianqiao got revenge
Shi Jianqiao is famous for tracking a man for 10 years before taking him out.
Sun Chuanfang, a warlord in China, beheaded her father for leading an opposition force against him in 1925. After Sun Chuanfang paraded her father’s head in public, Shi Jianqiao followed Sun Chuanfang for a whole decade before shooting him not once, not twice, but three times.
Shi Jianqiao stayed at the scene of the crime, explaining her actions with pamphlets.
She wasn’t arrested or punished. She was freed as the act was determined to be an example of filial piety.
14. Lucrezia Borgia had a wicked reputation
Often depicted as a femme fatale, Lucrezia Borgia was the daughter of controversial Pope Alexander VI, and a member of the notorious 15th-century Borgia clan may or may have not killed anyone. The family’s enemies spread a rumor that her hollow ring was what she used to poison people whom she couldn’t see eye to eye with.
Borgia did help her father and equally cunning brother, Cesare Borgia, gain more power. There’s no evidence for any assassination by her hands, but her fierce reputation still fascinates historians.
15. Charlotte Corday got her justice
Charlotte Corday killed the Jacobin leader Jean-Paul Marat on July 13, 1793. The September Massacres were attributed to Marat, with some 1,300 people executed as potential enemies of the state.
In Marat’s apartment, Corday stabbed him with a kitchen knife taking revenge for the massacres, even though she knew death awaited her.
Four days after the assassination, Corday was executed but her actions began a new era in France in terms of gender relations.
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