In Death by Lightning, Netflix offers an examination of the quick ascent and faster fall of President James A. Garfield, and his assassination by his onetime supporter Charles Guiteau. The four-episode miniseries stars Michael Shannon as the 20th president and Matthew MacFadyen as Guiteau, a man with mental illness who was sentenced to death by hanging after killing the president because his demand to be made a diplomat was not met.

The series, created by Mike Makowsky, is based on the 2011 book Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard , and is rife with political history that’s sometimes stranger than fiction. Did Garfield, a congressman from Ohio, actually earn the Republican nomination on the strength of one rousing speech, meant to lend his support for another candid

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