Video: 'Execution of Leon Czolgosz, assassin of McKinley, reenactment for Edison Film Company 1901'

(Monday, October 29, 1901, 7:14 a.m. local time; during the Assassination of William McKinley) — Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist who assassinated U.S. President William McKinley in Buffalo, New York, 45 days ago, was executed this morning by three jolts, each of 1800 volts, at Auburn Prison in Auburn, New York.

Acid was placed in the casket to dissolve his body, before burial in the prison graveyard.

McKinley, the 25th president of the United States, was shot on the grounds of the Pan-American Exposition at the Temple of Music in Buffalo, New York, on September 6, 1901, six months into his second term. He was shaking hands with the public when Czolgosz shot him twice in the abdomen.

Video: 'The Man Who Murdered McKinley: Leon Czolgosz'

McKinley died on September 14 of gangrene caused by the wounds. He was the third American president to be assassinated, following Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and James A. Garfield in 1881. McKinley was succeeded by his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt.

Czolgosz had lost his job during the economic Panic of 1893 and turned to anarchism, a political philosophy adhered to by recent assassins of foreign leaders. He regarded McKinley as a symbol of oppression and was convinced that it was his duty as an anarchist to kill him.

Czolgosz, 28, was sentenced to death in the electric chair, and Congress passed legislation to officially charge the Secret Service with the responsibility for protecting the president.