Departures of note

On 7 June 1912, Gyula Kovács, then a member of the Hungarian House of Representatives, leapt from the journalists' gallery of the Parliament building and shouted, “There is still a member of the opposition!” before firing three shots at the incumbent Speaker, István Tisza. All three rounds missed their target; the bullet marks remain visible in the chamber. After his final shot, Kovács attempted to end his own life, but survived without lasting injury, and the session continued under Tisza’s direction.

Born on 4 October 1874 in Felsőireg, Tolna County, Kovács pursued a military reserve commission, studied agriculture in Vienna, and became a prominent farmer and spokesman for local agrarians. He entered politics with the National Independence Agrarian Party of ’48, was elected MP for Gyoma in 1910, and later joined the parliamentary group of the Party of Independence and ’48. Following his acquittal on grounds of a “deeper disturbance of consciousness,” he resigned his seat in 1913, retired from politics, and emigrated to the United States in 1939, where he died on 10 October 1963 in Ventura, California.