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Zangara fired five shots. One of them hit Chicago mayor Anton Cermak, who was shaking hands with Zangara’s intended target. Cermak died. The target, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was sworn in as president two weeks later. Within months of his inauguration Roosevelt transformed the U.S. economy through the New Deal. John Nance Garner—who would have become president had Zangara hit his target—opposed most of the New Deal’s deficit spending. He almost certainly wouldn’t have enacted many of the same policies, some of which still shape today’s economy.
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