How to kill - Kris Hollington

Assassin, noun: a person who commits murder; especially; one who murders a politically important person either for hire or from fanatical motives.

Fact: between 1950 and 2000, over 4,000 assassinations were carried out - including 40 on heads of state.

Methods: exploding telephones, pipe-guns and bullets made of teeth, aspirin explosives, cobra-venom darts, a rifle that shoots around corners, a 'piss bomb' (10 cups of boiled urine mixed with nitric acid), exploding clams, an 'infernal machine' (a gun that fires 25 bullets at once), samurai swords, karate chops, poisoned umbrellas and a fuel-laden light aircraft. Sometimes even a regular gun.

Targets: popes, politicians, presidents, prime ministers, pop-stars, spin doctors, judges, businessmen, writers, revolutionaries, actors, royals, generals and dictators.

Secret case files: George W. Bush, Saddam Hussein, Uday Hussein, Ronald Reagan, Joseph Stalin, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Harry Truman, Martin Luther King, JFK, RFK, Medgar Evers, Georgi Markov, Woody Harrelson and the Serbian warlord Arkan.

Coroner's verdict: The definitive book on assassination, "How to Kill" shows that sometimes, one murder can change the world.