Lincoln assassination
Ford's Theatre tragedy
The Lincoln assassination was the murder of President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, when actor John Wilkes Booth shot him at Ford's Theatre in Washington.
Lincoln died the following morning.
The assassination, just days after the Civil War's effective end, made Lincoln a martyr and shaped how Americans remember the conflict and its meaning.
- Ford's TheatreHistoric Washington playhouse
- Civil WarCountrymen fighting countrymen
- mourning periodTime set aside for grief
- black crepeDark textured fabric for grief
- sic semper tyrannisLatin curse against despots
John Wilkes Booth · Washington D.C. · Reconstruction Era · national unity · derringer · fatal shot · conspiracy theories · Andrew Johnson · succession crisis · abolition movement · political unrest · Good Friday · martyrdom · political polarization · historical reenactments
- Assassinationsregicide, tyrannicide, targeted killing, hitman, Jack Ruby
- TragediesHamlet, Macbeth, Othello, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet
Lincoln assassinationEmancipation Proclamation
Executive order freeing Confederate slaves
Appomattox · V-E Day · V-J Day · moon landing
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