Editing 1940s (section)

== Assassinations and attempts ==
[[File:Trotsky Portrait.jpg|thumb|129px|[[Leon Trotsky]]]]
[[File:R-Heydrich.jpg|thumb|129px|[[Reinhard Heydrich]]]]
[[File:François Darlan.jpg|thumb|129px|[[François Darlan]]]]
[[File:Yamamoto-Isoroku.jpg|thumb|129px|[[Isoroku Yamamoto]]]]
[[File:Mohandas K. Gandhi, portrait, 1946.jpg|thumb|129px|[[Mahatma Gandhi]]]]
Prominent assassinations, targeted killings, and assassination attempts include:

{| class="wikitable mw-collapsible sortable"
|-
! style="width:120px;"| Date
! Description
|-
| August 20, 1940
| [[Leon Trotsky]], a Russian revolutionary and Soviet politician is attacked by [[Ramón Mercader]] using an [[ice axe]]. Trotsky died the next day from [[exsanguination]] and shock.
|-
| May 27, 1942
| [[Reinhard Heydrich]], a high-ranking Nazi official who played a key role in the [[Holocaust]], helping to develop the [[Final Solution]], is assassinated with a converted anti-tank mine in an [[Assassination of Reinhard Heydrich|attack]] by two British-trained and equipped Czech paratroopers in Prague, dying of his wounds on June 4.
|-
| December 24, 1942
| [[François Darlan]], French [[Admiral]] and political figure, is assassinated by [[Fernand Bonnier de La Chapelle]] in [[Algiers]], [[French Algeria]].
|-
| April 18, 1943
| In a [[Operation Vengeance|targeted killing]], Japanese admiral [[Isoroku Yamamoto]], who oversaw the operation against [[Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor]], is killed when the bomber transporting him is shot down by [[Lockheed P-38 Lightning|P-38]] fighters over [[Bougainville Island|Bougainville]].
|-
| July 20, 1944
| [[Adolf Hitler]], German fascist [[dictator]] is attacked with a bomb by anti-Nazi Colonel [[Claus von Stauffenberg]] and others of the [[German resistance to Nazism|German resistance]] in the [[20th July plot]]. Hitler survives with minor wounds and the suspects are either arrested or executed.
|-
| January 30, 1948
| [[Mahatma Gandhi]], Indian activist and leader of the Indian independence movement is [[Assassination of Mahatma Gandhi|assassinated]] by [[Nathuram Godse]] using a pistol.
|}