President McKinley’s Killer and the America He Left Behind: The Assassin, the Crime, Teddy Roosevelt’s Rise, and the Dawn of the

It should have been a grand day at the Pan-American Exhibition in Buffalo, New York, in 1901. President William McKinley shook hands with well-wishers who had lined up to meet their popular leader. But one man stepped forward with a pistol hidden under a handkerchief wrapped around his right hand. Two shots rang out, both striking McKinley in the abdomen. As the nation puzzled over the shooter and the ease of his crime, the president suffered for days before finally dying. Vice President Theodore Roosevelt was sworn in as president, becoming the youngest person ever to hold the job. The country -- and the world -- would never be the same.

Jessica Gunderson grew up in the small town of Washburn, North Dakota. She has a bachelor’s degree from the University of North Dakota and an MFA in Creative Writing from Minnesota State University, Mankato. She has written more than seventy-five books for young readers. An avid enthusiast of Civil War history and Abraham Lincoln, she is the author of The Election of 1860: A Nation Divides on the Eve of War and The Wound is Mortal: The Story of the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin.