Slovakia's Prime Minister is shot; remember other attacks against world leaders

Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico was shot and injured this Wednesday (15), becoming the latest European leader to be the target of an assassination attempt.

Slovak media said the shooter was a 71-year-old man, but the motive was not immediately clear.

While assassination attempts on leaders in Europe have been relatively rare over the past 50 years, several prominent European politicians have been targeted in more recent decades.

See some of the most prominent cases:

Anna Lindh, 2003

Swedish Foreign Minister and leading Social Democrat politician Anna Lindh was killed in a stabbing in a warehouse in central Stockholm in September 2003. The attacker was arrested two weeks later and sentenced to life in prison.

Zoran Djindjic, 2003

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated in March 2003, in Belgrade, Serbia. Djindjic was a pro-Western politician who led the ouster of autocrat Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.

Jacques Chirac, 2002

French President Jacques Chirac survived an assassination attempt in July 2002 after an assailant shot at him but missed as he reviewed troops on Bastille Day.

Pim Fortuyn, 2002

A well-known Dutch politician who was critical of immigration and Islam, Fortuyn was assassinated in May 2002, nine days before the general election. He was shot and killed by an animal rights activist.

Wolfgang Schauble, 1990

German politician Wolfgang Schauble was left partially paralyzed after being shot three times at an election campaign event just days after German reunification in 1990.

He went on to serve as a member of the German parliament for 50 years. He died last year.

Olóf Palme, 1986

Swedish Social Democratic Prime Minister Olóf Palme was murdered on a street in central Stockholm in February 1986, as he returned home with his wife after a night at the cinema. The suspect, who was convicted in 1988, was eventually acquitted on appeal.

Margaret Thatcher, 1984

British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, called the “Iron Lady”, narrowly escaped a huge explosion at a hotel where she was staying in Brighton, England. A long-awaited bomb was planted in the hotel before the Conservative Party conference by members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA).

Five people died in the explosion.

Pope John Paul II, 1981

The Polish-born pope was shot in St. Peter's Square, in the heart of Vatican City, in May 1981. Suffering two gunshot wounds, he managed to survive and, a few years later, his attacker requested and received a pardon from the Italian president. , Carlo Ciampi.

Aldo Moro, 1978

Former prime minister and president of Italy's Christian Democrats, Aldo Moro, was kidnapped by members of the far-left militant group the Red Brigades in March 1978, who demanded the release of prisoners in exchange for his release. About two months later, he was found dead in the trunk of a car.

Luis Carrero Blanco, 1973

Shortly after becoming Spanish prime minister in the final years before the death of right-wing dictator Francisco Franco, Luis Carrero Blanco was killed in a bombing on a Madrid street by the Basque nationalist militant group ETA.