Last Friday someone shot at the White House [NYT]. A brief history of such incidents:
Since the Brits torched it in 1814, the White House has faced not just gunfire, but fence jumpers, gate crashers, and more than one air assault. … [T]he most dangerous attack actually took place over 150 years ago and fell into none of the aforementioned categories. Why did this particular event stand out? Because, they write, it was “perhaps the only instance” wherein someone outside the White House nearly managed to harm the president—an incident in the early 1840s when “an intoxicated painter threw stones at President John Tyler as he strolled on the south grounds.”
The Dish 