What do you think the most costly political assassination was to the civ of your choise (please pre-1900 only!!!)

Most costly military assassination (any time period)?

Had to add this just for fun:
Most costly "charactor assassination" (modern times)?

List of deaths posted. List is at the middle of the page...

I've always wondered what would've happened had Caesar not been assassinated? Could he have saved the Republic? Or would he have become the first Emperor? Would he have survived to defeat the Germans once and for all?

I saw a documentry not long ago about Caesar's assassination. It's now believed that Caesar actually wanted to be murdered... Sounds dumb I know but think about it. He was getting very old and suffered from a disease which escapes my mind at the moment, but it was one that affected his behaviour. On many occasions this disease caused him public embarrassment. Caesar didn't wont to go down in history as a fumbling old fool who had lost his mind. He got word of the assassination plot but did nothing to avoid the ambush... Therefore he went down in history as the brave emperor of the greatest civilization in history who came to an end by the jealous plots of conspirators... Gienius really...

If you believe that story, I've got the Brooklyn Bridge for sale.

More likely, Caesar was so full of self-importance that he couldn't imagine he was vulnerable.

Anyway, my vote for one of the costlier political assassinations was Abraham Lincoln. Lincoln was trying to reconcile the North and South after years of Civil War. Although this reconciliation did eventually happen, it may have been worked better had he lived.

Ceaser was epileptic, or so I've heard.

Caesar wasn't epileptic. In ancient times, epilepsy was thought to be a "royal disease", so anyone who attained royal stature was instantly rumored to have epilepsy. Even though Hippocrates discredited the notion that epilepsy equated to royalty, the connection stuck. Even Napoleon was said to have it. (He didn't.)

Russia:

Plenty of murders over there, but a classic "what-if" is, what if Tsar Alexander II had survived the anarchist bomb in 1881 and contunued to push through much needed political reforms in Russia?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_II_of_Russia

Someone should perhaps put together a list of the more important political assasinations?

What do we have? On the top of my head...

Caesar
Caligula, Domitian
JFK (a whole lot of US presidents have been murdered, haven't they?)
Alexander II
Gustaf III (Sweden)
Henry IV (France)
Etc., etc.

Someone should perhaps put together a list of the more important political assasinations?

What do we have? On the top of my head...

Caesar
Caligula, Domitian
JFK (a whole lot of US presidents have been murdered, haven't they?)
Alexander II
Gustaf III (Sweden)
Henry IV (France)
Etc., etc.

Pre 1900. Garfield and Lincoln, I believe, are the only US presidents assainated before 1900. It's rumored that one president was poisoned, though.

McKinley as well

McKinley's assasination was by far the most far-reaching in terms of impact on American history, as it brought Theodore Rosevelt to power.

Interestingly enough, Teddy was put in as Vice-President for the express purpose of burying him in obscurity. Oops.

JFK

JFK's assasination wasn't all that important. Lyndon Johnson continued all of JFK's policies and actually got them passed through Congress, something JFK had failed to do.

Shortly after i made this thread, I started thinking about the leaders that were chosen for Civ 3 (i play the Gold Edition) and I noticed a trend. Many of these leaders were assassinated or died under mysterious circumstances. I did a little more reaserch and came up with this list:

Assassinations
Abraham Lincoln
Caesar
Gandhi
Xerxes

Excecutions
Joan de Arc

Murders
Shaka

Suicide
Hannibal

Wartime Deaths
Genghis Kahn

Uncertanties
Abu Bakr....................Possible Poisoning
Alexander the Great.....Possible Poisoning
Cleopatra...................Likely Suicide
Montezuma................Possible battle death / excecution
Osman......................Natural Death?
Tokugawa Ieyasu........Natural Death?

Natural Deaths
Catherine the Great
Elizabeth
Isabella
Mao
Otto von Bismarck

Unknown
Brennus
Hammurabi
Hiawatha
Ragnor
Wang Kon

I found it interesting that many great leaders (in sid meiers' eyes) died under strange circumstances. It is possible that the greatest leaders were the ones that posed the greatest threat to political rivals and wartime enemies and were thus assassinated or otherwise killed.

*If anyone can correct any unknowns/uncertanties in this list, feel free to!*

WOw. I didn't think of that. Interesting.

Genghis Khan actually died of old age whilst he was in war with Xi-Xia. That's a natural death.

Didn't Djengis Khan fall off his horse and die of the injuries (and old age)?

If so, I've got one comment: Oh, the irony! :D

Gosh, I wonder why no-one has already said the Archduke Franz Ferdinand...

The result of that assassination was a chain of events that culminated in the 1st World War, whilst all the other assassinations mentioned lead to relatively little by way of consequence.


Who was he?

http://www.firstworldwar.com/bio/ferdinand.htm

:D

But...WWI was after 1900...

Ah yes, ditto on kittenOFchaos. Had he not been assassinated, would the world be the same? Probably, but its scary to think about. Thanx for bringing that up!

Didn't Djengis Khan fall off his horse and die of the injuries (and old age)?

Old age fatigue when riding a horse. He didn't die by war, but by old age.

Unknown
Brennus
Hammurabi
Hiawatha
Ragnor
Wang Kon
[...]
*If anyone can correct any unknowns/uncertanties in this list, feel free to!*
The only Scandinavian "Ragnor" that comes to mind is Ragnar Lodbrok (i.e. Ragnar "Furrypants").

The historical version seems to be, he was jarl in the service of the Danish king around 850 AD, who led a campaign into northern France, and died shortly after his return home.
Natural causes.

He did become a mythological figure already back in those days. According to legend he fought the English, who threw him into a pit filled with venomous snakes to die pityfully. (Warrior's death considered too good for the bastard, they thought.) So his sons went to England and killed people to avenge his death.
Murder/execution. (Certainly cruel and unusual.)

But...WWI was after 1900...

The curses of scan reading.

Plus Verbose had mentioned JFK, so...

The curses of scan reading.

Plus Verbose had mentioned JFK, so...
Wasn't paying attention...:blush:

Drawing the line at 1900 is a bit arbitrary anyhoo. Are 20th c. political murders different?

I only put the 1900 thing there because i didnt want to start a modern political battle (for example: "Oh, if ony regan had died." or "Kennedy was worthless, who needed that democrat bastard"). I figured assassinations of such figures as Lincoln or Garfield were vintage enough not to cause a battle between political parties.

I guess y'all are mature enough not to start that though. Go ahead and mention post 1900 if you'd like. Not like i coulda stopped u anyway ;)