In 1835, a house painter named Richard Lawrence walked up to President Andrew Jackson and fired two pistols at point-blank range.

Both guns misfired.

Jackson, 67 years old at the time, immediately attacked Lawrence with his cane. His aides had to pull him off the would-be assassin.

The odds of both pistols misfiring were later estimated at 1 in 125,000. Smithsonian researchers tested them decades later — both fired perfectly on the first try.

This was the first assassination attempt on a sitting US president, and it's barely a footnote in most history books. Jackson went on to serve the rest of his term, convinced the whole thing was a political conspiracy.

History is full of moments like this — stories that sound made up but actually happened, buried under the weight of the "important" stuff we were forced to memorize.

That's exactly what The History Vault is about. Every week, we dig up the stories that textbooks forgot. Free to join — come see what you've been missing.