Trotsky murder, Ramón Mercader, arrested.

Leon Trotsky, the exiled Russian revolutionary, was attacked on August 20, 1940, in Mexico City by Ramón Mercader, a Spanish communist and secret agent of the Soviet NKVD (precursor to the KGB).

Mercader gained access to Trotsky’s inner circle by posing as a sympathetic journalist named “Jacques Mornard.” On that day, he visited Trotsky’s home in Coyoacán, ostensibly to have Trotsky review an article he had written. While Trotsky leaned over the paper, Mercader struck him in the head with an ice axe.

Trotsky, gravely wounded but still conscious, fought back and prevented Mercader from escaping. The guards captured the attacker, who was arrested on the spot. Trotsky died from his injuries the next day, August 21, 1940.

Mercader was sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico. Upon his release in 1960, he traveled to Cuba and later to the Soviet Union, where he was awarded the Order of Lenin and named a Hero of the Soviet Union for his act. He died in Havana, Cuba, in 1978.