The word assassination probably conjures up images of notable killings like the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Gandhi or John Lennon. Assassination attempts are not ingrained in our memories as easily, and there are many that most of us have never even heard about. At times, the intended target of an assassination plot can be extraordinarily hard to reach, forcing conspirators to come up with creative and sometimes very weird ideas about how to accomplish their goal. Some attempts are downright amusing, in part because they failed spectacularly, and the victim lived to tell about it. Sometimes assassinations attempted by some of the most capable people in the world just don’t work out. Here are 10 assassination attempts that didn’t quite go as the killers had hoped.

1. Michael Lapsley

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South African human rights campaigner Michael Lapsley was a prominent voice that spoke out against apartheid, which was clearly something proponents did not like very much. One day in 1990, Lapsley received a letter in the mail that turned out to be a bomb. The explosion caused him to lose both of his hands, but that didn’t stop Lapsley, and he continued to speak out against apartheid.