Tag: Abraham Lincoln

The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln

14th April 1865

On this day, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was shot by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford’s Theatre in Washington. The president died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 a.m. in the Petersen House opposite the theatre. The assassination was part of a larger political conspiracy that Booth hoped would revive the Confederate cause, but apart from Lincoln’s death, the plot failed. After a dramatic initial escape, Booth was killed at the end of a 12-day chase and his collaborators were later hanged for their roles in the conspiracy. Lincoln was the first U.S. president to be assassinated and his funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.

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South Carolina Secedes from the United States

20th December 1860

On this day the state of South Carolina voted 169-0 to secede from the United States, declaring itself an independent commonwealth. The other southern cotton states of Mississippi,  Florida,  Alabama,  Georgia,  Louisiana, and  Texas were quick to follow suit. Fear was in the air in the South that the new President, Abraham Lincoln, would stop the expansion of slavery and put it on a course toward extinction. The secession of the southern states led to the American Civil War [1861-1865] which resulted in defeat for the South and, eventually, to the abolition of slavery in the United States.

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