Call it premonition, call it coincidence, but President Ronald Reagan remembered that nine days earlier he was visiting Ford Theatre, in Washington D.C., for a fundraiser, and experienced a strange sensation. “I thought that even with all the Secret Service protection we now had, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determination to get close enough to a president to shoot him.”

On this day, March 30, in 1981, President Reagan, after a speaking engagement at the Washington Hotel, left to walk to his limousine, 30 feet away from the hotel entrance. His would-be assassin, John Hinckley fired six shots from his revolver; none hit the president, but the last one ricocheted off the armored car and hit the president in the chest.

Events could have unfolded much more tragically if not for the quick reaction time of the Secret Service Agent in Charge Jerry Parr. Parr, 51 at the time of the shooting, unhesitatingly threw his body in front of the president and took a bullet meant for Reagan in the abdomen. He got in the car with Reagan, and seeing the president bleeding, ordered them to go to nearest hospital. Parr likely saved the president’s life that day, an act for which he was given a Congressional commendation and numerous other awards.