Lesser-Known Near-Deaths and Near-Misses

[AH Layard]

Similarly, Sir Robert Peel was nearly assassinated in 1843 by an insane Scottish wood turner, Daniel M'Naghten, who instead shot his secretary - these being the days before everyone knew what the Prime Minister looked like.

Related to Peel there's also the counterfactual of him not falling off his horse in 1850 and dying from a broken collarbone. He was 62 but could have gone on longer, perhaps he could have been Prime Minister of a coalition in 1852 instead of his disciple Aberdeen. There was even talk of the Tories potentially reuniting, so it could be a world where Gladstone is back in the Tory party and the character of the Whig/Liberals is very different.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Montgomery was shot by a sniper in October 1914, the bullet hit him in the right lung. This could very easily have been a fatal injury.

Carton de Wiart survived worse.

By 1918 there wasn't much of him left.

 

[Masteroftheuniverse]

There was that incident in 1973 when both Nixon and Brezhnev were in a car that stood a good chance of crashing.

 

[Bonniecanuck]

Going back to WW2 deaths and American Presidents, lest we forget FDR's infamous close shave with the Willy D when he was travelling to the Tehran Conference in 1943. It's a pretty well-told story in military nerd circles, but the short of it is that a destroyer escorting the battleship he was travelling on accidentally launched a torpedo at it during drills, and after failing to communicate with signal lamps broke radio silence to alert them about it. When he heard about what happened FDR asked the Secret Service to bring him up on deck so he could watch the torpedo.

 

[Md139115]

Just after he took office for the second time in 1893, Grover Cleveland had a team of surgeons remove a cancerous tumor in his mouth, along with some of his upper jaw and teeth, onboard a moving yacht in the middle of the Atlantic.

He somehow lived.

 

[theev]

There’s the incident recounted by Hunter S. Thompson in Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail where Thompson almost flicked a lit cigarette butt into an exposed container of jet fuel while speaking to Richard Nixon right before the New Hampshire primary in 1968. That would have at least killed Nixon, Thompson, and Pat Buchanan who was also present.

 

[Lemon flavoured]

Great thread idea. As the OP alludes to with Obama's hypothetical grand piano, I've always been disappointed by the number of (often otherwise good) TLs that resort to 'lol random heart attack' rather than using a real-life near-disaster.

As I used in The Unreformed Kingdom, Lord Palmerston was nearly killed in 1818 when he was shot climbing the stairs of the War Office by a mentally ill veteran, Lt Davies - the bullet only grazed his back, and he went on to be an incredibly influential Foreign and Prime Minister.

Similarly, Sir Robert Peel was nearly assassinated in 1843 by an insane Scottish wood turner, Daniel M'Naghten, who instead shot his secretary - these being the days before everyone knew what the Prime Minister looked like.

There are reasons why the UK standard for insanity pleas are known as the M'Naghten Rules.

 

[Excelsior]

Just after he took office for the second time in 1893, Grover Cleveland had a team of surgeons remove a cancerous tumor in his mouth, along with some of his upper jaw and teeth, onboard a moving yacht in the middle of the Atlantic.

He somehow lived.

Speaking of boats and presidents with uncomfortable marriage dynamics, John Tyler could have died on that ship explosion that killed two of his Cabinet members and four other people. Granted, Tyler's term only had a year left in it, but the presidency or acting presidency would have devolved upon Willie Person Mangum. I also wonder what effect it would have had on presidential succession given how Tyler's attitude upon succeeding Harrison insured that the vice president became full president when the president died.

 

[Yokai Man]

*Cracks knuckles*

-on December 2, 1880, when Ion C Brătianu was just leaving the building of the Chamber of Deputies,Ivan Petraru, an official in the Ministry of Finance jumped on him with a knife with a blade 20 cm long, to attack him. Brătianu had the inspiration to hit him over the arm, turning the blow that targeted the neck area towards the thick coat that he used to wear in winter.

Him dying then would have left the Liberal Party in a different direction,probably with C.A Rosetti being PM,and agricultural and voting reforms happening earlier.

-during 1897 Ferdinand suffered of typhoid fever,with many believing that he’d die and that the Crown would need another appointee successor to the throne.

The person in question to take Nando’s place? Why,no other than Prince Luigi Amedeo, Duke of the Abruzzi,cousin to Victor Emmanuel III,Infante of Spain and best known for his Arctic and mountain expedition and the colonizing of Somaliland.

I’m not quite sure what he would do differently as King of Romania compared to Nando given that I don’t know much about his political views but it would be interesting to see him deal with the upheavals of the nation,especially during WW1.

-Ionel Brătianu was nearly shot dead in 1909 by a disgruntled railway employee,which would have not only changed the life of Romanian politics significantly (given how much of a schemer Bratianu was,the poor man’s Bismarck) but also could have caused massive riots against Bulgarians and other minorities due to the attacker being half Bulgarian,as well as how OTL a large influx of bigotry was caused by the event and a nationalist and anti socialist fever set the country aflame and in blind support of the Liberals,with many starting to think the assassination was just a ploy to weaken the newly formed trade unions. (Though there isn’t any real evidence to that,it just seemed plausible since Bratianu did shit like that all the time)

I got more but there’s a lot on the top of my head that I can think of so it’s gonna be two parter post.

-during an inspection of the frontlines on February 3 1917,Colonel Alexandru D Strudza,working for the Germans,pulled Ferdinand away from his entourage to “show” him the frontlines better and set him up for the German snipers hiding in the bushes to shot him,
only for Nando to constantly fuck their plans by moving too much and looking/picking some flowers that managed to survive winter.

He nearly did get shot btw which would have led to the very young Carol II being crowned as King and more turbulent times politically speaking-maybe even Averescu gets the guts and starts a dictatorship with young Carol‘s approval,starting a civil war after WW1 (Incidentally,that’s a project I’m working on so I’ll leave there for now,don’t want to spoil things)

-in 1934,a group of officers planned to assassinate Carol II for his playboy lifestyle and being too chummy with Lupeasca,organizing to attack/ “kidnap” the couple right as they were going to the Easter Sermon,launching grenades and open fire from the windows of the Boulevard Hotel on the royal convoy heading for the church. At the same time, the other participants in the plot were to attack the dignitaries already in the church, waiting for the royal procession.

The plot failed due to one of the members of the plot being an informant but it nearly could have worked had the head of the secret service,Morozov,had paid less attention or if the plotters were more careful.

The whole thing would have left Romania in chaos-the king dead,the PM and most of the government dead,the heir to the throne still being a minor,all the other adult heirs being banished before this-the list goes on.

And speaking of Lupeasca,

-in 1934-1935,some Iron Guard members nearly managed to wack Lupeasca,which would have led to Carol losing his shit and going full authoritarian four years early,maybe even starting the National Rebirth Front earlier

-pretty almost every opposition figure to Iliescu and FSN could have been easily killed by angry FSN supporters or by the miners during 1990,which I cannot state how bad that would have been.

-Sorin Ovidiu Vantu tried and failed during 2000-2001 to physically liquidate those he considered "guilty" of FNI-related media revelations,including the former head of SIE Catalin Harnagea,Dan Andronic (then director of Curentul),and Petre Mihai Bacanu,editor in chief of Romania Libera.

Needless to say,it would have been a huge scandal,especially given how many connection Vantu had with nearly everyone in politics and media.

-just every encounter Isaia Faur had with every President of Romania,the guy is genuinely unstable and it’s really easy to see him trying to murder someone.

 

[True Grit]

A drunk dude accidentally broke into Justin Trudeau’s house in 2014 because the door had been left unlocked and he mistook it for a friend’s house. The guy thought about stealing a bunch of kitchen knives before deciding against it, writing a note to say they should lock their doors, and leaving.

Trudeau himself wasn’t home at the time (though his family was) and the guy didn’t even know whose house he had broken into until after the fact, but theoretically there’s a timeline where Trudeau’s home, the break-in still happens, and everyone involved has the worst possible luck imaginable.

 

[AH Layard]

Cliveless World takes a POD of the attempted suicide of Robert Clive succeeding. Remarkably in OTL he tried twice but the pistol misfired both times. Without Clive's ruthlessness and leadership the British don't secure a dominant position in India.

Related to this, Graham Greene suffered from severe depression throughout his life and used to play Russian Roulette at boarding school. Would have been a huge loss for world literature.

 

[AH Layard]

A music related near miss is Bob Dylan's motorcycle crash in 1966, although the extent of his actual injuries is unknown and there is speculation that he simply wanted a reason to stop touring and seclude himself. It was after the release of Blonde on Blonde which is regarded by many as his greatest album and he was only 25, despite a prolific catalogue of material.

Mitt Romney was almost killed in a car accident in June 1968, while a Mormon missionary in France.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Probably wouldn’t take much for Mark Hamills crash to be fatal. I’d like to think that results in Princess Leia the Return of the Jedi but somehow I think we’d end up with Han Solo ending up the star character

All without a seat belt, that's why he would never allow them on the Enterprise.

Imagine if the brace position had been invented by that point

 

[MAC161]

Just remembered this one, though I'm only familiar with the general plot outline: http://www.uchronia.net/label/dannrebeli.html#1

(Not an OTL near-death/near-miss, I know)

 

[Hendryk]

Probably wouldn’t take much for Mark Hamills crash to be fatal. I’d like to think that results in Princess Leia the Return of the Jedi but somehow I think we’d end up with Han Solo ending up the star character

Didn't someone write a TL with that premise at the other place? Though I'm not sure if it was ever completed.

 

[Stateless]

Maybe not lesser known (though it fades with each passing year), in 2006 Dick Cheney shot a member of his hunting party. If Harry Whittington gets unlucky, he could have died. I imagine that even if Whittington had died it wouldn't have resulted in criminal charges for Cheney, but he might have resigned as Vice President - a role that Cheney had made very important within Bush's administration, making it difficult to fill, even with Bush's administration entering its lame duck period. Get Cheney's original suggestion of Danforth in? See if James Baker fancies a better job than the SecDef job he turned down?

The other near miss of the Bush administration - well-known at the time, but I don't hear it mentioned too often any more, which makes me think that in time it will be obscure - was Bush choking on a pretzel in January 2002 - Cheney being president until at least 2005 would have a huge impact.

 

[Hendryk]

In April 2004, the North Korean railway station of Ryongchon was levelled by a huge explosion, believed to have been caused by a trainload of industrial explosives being sloppily shunted. Just a few hours earlier, Kim Jong-il's personal train had passed through the station, and in fact it was suspected for a while that the explosion may have been a botched assassination attempt. Had it taken place while he was there, North Korea would have found itself with a sudden power vacuum and a likely succession crisis.

 

[Ricardolindo]

In April 2004, the North Korean railway station of Ryongchon was levelled by a huge explosion, believed to have been caused by a trainload of industrial explosives being sloppily shunted. Just a few hours earlier, Kim Jong-il's personal train had passed through the station, and in fact it was suspected for a while that the explosion may have been a botched assassination attempt. Had it taken place while he was there, North Korea would have found itself with a sudden power vacuum and a likely succession crisis.

Kim Jong-Il seriously considered commiting suicide in 1994. He was depressed following the death of his father Kim Il-Sung. He was found with a gun at one point.

 

[Thande]

Maybe not lesser known (though it fades with each passing year), in 2006 Dick Cheney shot a member of his hunting party. If Harry Whittington gets unlucky, he could have died. I imagine that even if Whittington had died it wouldn't have resulted in criminal charges for Cheney, but he might have resigned as Vice President - a role that Cheney had made very important within Bush's administration, making it difficult to fill, even with Bush's administration entering its lame duck period. Get Cheney's original suggestion of Danforth in? See if James Baker fancies a better job than the SecDef job he turned down?

The other near miss of the Bush administration - well-known at the time, but I don't hear it mentioned too often any more, which makes me think that in time it will be obscure - was Bush choking on a pretzel in January 2002 - Cheney being president until at least 2005 would have a huge impact.

Also the grenade attack on Bush in Georgia (the country not the state) in I think 2005.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Also the grenade attack on Bush in Georgia (the country not the state) in I think 2005.

And the Kuwaiti car bomb attack (by Iraqis) on HW in 1993, which could have been a bit more successful/less amateurish.