Assassination is the willful killing, by a sudden or secret attack, of a person—especially a prominent or important one—typically for political or ideological reasons.
Assassinations may be ordered by both individuals and organizations and carried out by their accomplices. Acts of assassination have been performed since ancient times. A person who carries out an assassination is called an assassin.
Lucius Annaeus Seneca the Younger (/ˈsɛnɪkə/ SEN-ik-ə; c. 4 BC – AD 65), usually known mononymously as Seneca, was a Stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman, a dramatist, and in one work, a satirist, from the post-Augustan age of Latin literature.
Seneca was born in Colonia Patricia Corduba in Hispania, and was trained in rhetoric and philosophy in Rome. His father was Seneca the Elder, his elder brother was Lucius Junius Gallio Annaeanus, and his nephew was the poet Lucan. In AD 41, Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica under emperor Claudius, but was allowed to return in 49 to become a tutor to Nero. When Nero became emperor in 54, Seneca became his advisor and, together with the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus, provided competent government for the first five years of Nero's reign. Seneca's influence over Nero declined with time, and in 65 Seneca was executed by forced suicide for alleged complicity in the Pisonian conspiracy to assassinate Nero, of which he may have been innocent, although there is still no consensus agreement. His stoic and calm suicide has become the subject of numerous paintings.
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty and formerly called judicial homicide, is the state-sanctioned killing of a person as punishment for actual or supposed misconduct. The sentence ordering that an offender be punished in such a manner is called a death sentence, and the act of carrying out the sentence is an execution. A prisoner who has been sentenced to death and awaits execution is condemned and is commonly referred to as being "on death row". Etymologically, the term capital (lit. 'of the head', derived via the Latin capitalis from caput, "head") refers to execution by beheading, but executions are carried out by many methods.
Crimes that are punishable by death are known as capital crimes, capital offences, or capital felonies, and vary depending on the jurisdiction, but commonly include serious crimes against a person, such as murder, assassination, mass murder, child murder, aggravated rape, terrorism, aircraft hijacking, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, along with crimes against the state such as attempting to overthrow government, treason, espionage, sedition, and piracy. Also, in some cases, acts of recidivism, aggravated robbery, and kidnapping, in addition to drug trafficking, drug dealing, and drug possession, are capital crimes or enhancements. However, states have also imposed punitive executions, for an expansive range of conduct, for political or religious beliefs and practices, for a status beyond one's control, or without employing any significant due process procedures. Judicial murder is the intentional and premeditated killing of an innocent person by means of capital punishment. For example, the executions following the show trials in the Soviet Union during the Great Purge of 1936–1938 were an instrument of political repression.
The Crisis of the Third Century, also known as the Military Anarchy or the Imperial Crisis, was a period in Roman history during which the Roman Empire nearly collapsed under the combined pressure of repeated foreign invasions, civil wars and economic disintegration. At the height of the crisis, the Roman state split into three distinct and competing polities. The period is usually dated between the death of Severus Alexander (235) and accession of Diocletian (284).
The crisis began in 235 with the assassination of Emperor Severus Alexander by his own troops. During the following years, the empire saw barbarian invasions and migrations into Roman territory, civil wars, peasant rebellions and political instability, with multiple usurpers competing for power. This led to the debasement of currency and a breakdown in both trade networks and economic productivity, with the Plague of Cyprian contributing to the disorder. Roman armies became more reliant over time on the growing influence of the barbarian mercenaries known as foederati. Roman commanders in the field, although nominally loyal to the state, became increasingly independent of Rome's central authority.
Tyrannicide or tyrannomachia is the killing or assassination of a tyrant or unjust ruler, purportedly for the common good,and usually by one of the tyrant's subjects. Tyrannicide was legally permitted and encouraged in Classical Greece. Often, the term "tyrant" was a justification for political murders by rivals, but in some exceptional cases students of Platonic philosophy risked their lives against tyrants. The killing of Clearchus of Heraclea in 353 BC by a cohort led by his own court philosopher is an example of a tyrannicide. A person who carries out a tyrannicide is also called a "tyrannicide".
The term originally denoted the action of Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who are often called the Tyrannicides, in killing Hipparchus of Athens in 514 BC.
The Yemen Arab Republic (YAR; Arabic: الجمهورية العربية اليمنية al-Jumhūriyyah al-‘arabiyyah al-Yamaniyyah, French: République arabe du Yémen), also known as Yemen (Sanaʽa) and commonly referred to as North Yemen, was a country that existed from 1962 until its unification with the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen (commonly known as South Yemen) in 1990, in the northwestern part of what is now Yemen. Its capital was Sana'a. It bordered South Yemen to the southeast, Saudi Arabia to the north and the Red Sea to the west, sharing maritime borders with Djibouti and the People's Democratic Republic of Ethiopia.
The Yemen Arab Republic was formed in 1962, when a coup in the capital Sana'a saw Nasserist military officers overthrow the monarchy and proclaim a republic. The overthrow triggered an 8-year civil war that ended with the defeat of the monarchists and the victory of pro-republican forces. The following years were marked by political instability, civil conflicts, frequent political assassinations and military coups: the country was ruled by a military junta from 1962 to 1967 and again from 1974 to 1978. Relative stability began with the rise to power of Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was able to successfully consolidate his position in the government. The YAR eventually managed to establish good relations with many Arab states and the United States, for which it served as a counterweight to communist South Yemen, but it maintained ties with the USSR, relying on the weapons it purchased from it. On May 22, 1990, the YAR united with the PDRY (South Yemen) to form the current Republic of Yemen, under the leadership of Saleh.
Political violence is violence which is perpetrated in order to achieve political goals. It can include violence which is used by a state against other states (war), violence which is used by a state against civilians and non-state actors (forced disappearance, psychological warfare, police brutality, targeted killings, torture, ethnic cleansing, or genocide), and violence which is used by violent non-state actors against states and civilians (kidnappings, assassinations, terrorist attacks, torture, psychological and/or guerrilla warfare). It can also describe politically motivated violence which is used by violent non-state actors against a state (rebellion, rioting, treason, or coup d'état) or it can describe violence which is used against other non-state actors and/or civilians. Non-action on the part of a government can also be characterized as a form of political violence, such as refusing to alleviate famine or otherwise denying resources to politically identifiable groups within their territory.
Due to the imbalances of power which exist between state and non-state actors, political violence often takes the form of asymmetric warfare where neither side is able to directly assault the other, instead relying on tactics such as guerrilla warfare and terrorism. It can often include attacks on civilian or otherwise non-combatant targets. People may be collectively targeted based on the perception that they are part of a social, ethnic, religious, or political group; or selectively, targeting specific individuals for actions that are perceived as challenging someone or aiding an opponent.