In the late 1970s, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat shocked his nation when he decided to sign a peace treaty with Israel, a county with which Egypt had been at war since 1948. A few years later, he was assassinated. In the early 1990s, his former enemy, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin similarly shocked his country when he began a complex peace process with the Palestinians. Shortly thereafter, he, too, was assassinated. The world was surprised by these events, and historians continue to debate what these political assassinations mean. In this talk, Prof. Nancy L. Stockdale will give historical background to the assassinations of Sadat and Rabin, and discuss the many theories, controversies, and impacts that these political murders had - and continue to have - on Egypt and Israel, and throughout the Middle East.