161 years ago today
Lincoln Is Shot at Ford's Theatre
On the evening of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attended a performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C., accompanied by his wife Mary Todd Lincoln and two guests. Five days after Lee's surrender at Appomattox, the capital was in a mood of jubilation. At 10:15 p.m., 26-year-old actor and Confederate sympathizer John Wilkes Booth slipped into the presidential box and fired a single .44-caliber bullet into the back of Lincoln's head at point-blank range. Lincoln was carried unconscious to the Petersen House across the street, where he lingered through the night. He died at 7:22 a.m. on April 15, 1865 — the first American president to be assassinated. Booth escaped into the Virginia countryside but was tracked down and killed twelve days later. The assassination, part of a coordinated plot that also targeted Vice President Andrew Johnson and Secretary of State William Seward, plunged a nation celebrating victory into sudden grief.
On the record: Abraham Lincoln
This day, across time
- 1471EventBattle of Barnet: Warwick the Kingmaker Killed
- 1629BornChristiaan Huygens
- 1759DiedGeorge Frideric Handel
- 1775EventFirst Abolition Society Organized in America
- 1865FeaturedLincoln Is Shot at Ford's Theatre
- 1889BornArnold J. Toynbee
- 1894EventFirst Commercial Motion Picture House Opens
- 1900EventExposition Universelle Opens in Paris
- 1904BornJohn Gielgud
- 1912EventRMS Titanic Strikes the Iceberg
- 1931EventSecond Spanish Republic Proclaimed
- 1932BornLoretta Lynn
- 1935EventBlack Sunday: The Worst Dust Storm of the Dust Bowl
- 1958BornPeter Capaldi
- 1964DiedRachel Carson
- 1986DiedSimone de Beauvoir
- 2014EventBoko Haram Abducts 276 Schoolgirls in Chibok
Alive in 1865
OverlapSame years; not influence
Abraham Lincolndied this year
Charles John Huffam Dickensturned 53 this year
Charles Robert Darwinturned 56 this year
Friedrich Nietzscheturned 21 this year
Henry Fordturned 2 this year
Karl Marxturned 47 this year
Nikola Teslaturned 9 this year
Oscar Wildeturned 11 this year
Otto von Bismarckturned 50 this year
Queen Victoriaturned 46 this year
10 more figures were alive that year
On This Day in History
8 EventsBattle of Barnet: Warwick the Kingmaker Killed
Edward IV defeats the Lancastrian forces in a fog-shrouded battle at Barnet, north of London. Richard Neville, the 16th Earl of Warwick — "the Kingmaker" who had installed and then deposed Edward — is killed in the fighting, tilting the Wars of the Roses decisively in favor of the Yorkists.
First Abolition Society Organized in America
Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush help organize the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage in Philadelphia — the first abolition society in American history, later renamed the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Franklin would serve as its president until his death.
First Commercial Motion Picture House Opens
The first commercial Kinetoscope parlor opens at 1155 Broadway in New York City, charging 25 cents for customers to peer through eyepieces at short moving pictures created by Thomas Edison's laboratory. It is the first time moving pictures are commercially exhibited to the public.
Exposition Universelle Opens in Paris
The Paris World's Fair of 1900 opens, drawing 48 million visitors over seven months. It introduces the world to diesel engines, talking films, escalators, and the now-iconic Grand and Petit Palais. The exhibition captures the optimism and technological ambition of the Belle Époque at its peak.
RMS Titanic Strikes the Iceberg
At 11:40 p.m., lookout Frederick Fleet spots an iceberg dead ahead and rings the warning bell. Thirty-seven seconds later, the Titanic's hull grazes the iceberg, opening a series of gashes below the waterline across five compartments. The ship, designed to stay afloat with four compartments flooded, begins to sink.
Second Spanish Republic Proclaimed
Municipal elections in Spain produce a massive republican vote, forcing King Alfonso XIII to flee the country without formally abdicating. The Second Spanish Republic is proclaimed the same day, beginning a turbulent democratic experiment that ends in civil war in 1936.
Black Sunday: The Worst Dust Storm of the Dust Bowl
The most devastating dust storm of the Dust Bowl era sweeps across the Oklahoma and Texas panhandles, turning day to night, burying farms under black drifts, and suffocating livestock. The disaster accelerates the mass migration of "Okies" to California immortalized by John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath.
Boko Haram Abducts 276 Schoolgirls in Chibok
The Islamist militant group Boko Haram abducts 276 girls from the Government Girls Secondary School in Chibok, Borno State, Nigeria, in the middle of the night. The abduction triggers the #BringBackOurGirls campaign and focuses global attention on Boko Haram's campaign of terror in northeastern Nigeria.
Born on This Day
Christiaan Huygens
Dutch Mathematician & Astronomer
One of the greatest scientists of the 17th century, Huygens discovered Saturn's moon Titan, identified the rings of Saturn, and invented the pendulum clock — the most accurate timepiece of his age. His wave theory of light anticipated quantum mechanics by two centuries.
John Gielgud
English Actor
The supreme Shakespearean actor of the 20th century, Gielgud's Hamlet set a standard against which every subsequent Hamlet was measured. He performed for seven decades, winning the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for Arthur (1981) at age 77.
Loretta Lynn
American Country Singer-Songwriter
The coal miner's daughter from Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, whose unflinching country songs about working-class women's lives — Coal Miner's Daughter, The Pill, You Ain't Woman Enough — made her the most awarded female country artist of all time and a feminist icon before the term was widely used.
Peter Capaldi
Scottish Actor & Director
The Glasgow-born actor who won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 1995 for Franz Kafka's It's a Wonderful Life, played the ferociously foul-mouthed spin doctor Malcolm Tucker in The Thick of It, and became the Twelfth Doctor in Doctor Who — a role he played with unusual gravity and emotional depth.
Arnold J. Toynbee
English Historian
Author of the monumental 12-volume A Study of History, Toynbee attempted to trace the rise, flourishing, and disintegration of all 26 major civilizations in human history. At mid-century he was arguably the most widely read historian in the world.
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George Frideric Handel
German-British Composer
The composer of Messiah, Water Music, and Music for the Royal Fireworks died in London at 74, blind and worn but still working. Born in Germany, he became thoroughly British and was buried in Westminster Abbey with full national honors. His Messiah has not gone a year without performance since its premiere.
Simone de Beauvoir
French Philosopher & Author
Author of The Second Sex (1949), the foundational text of modern feminist philosophy, de Beauvoir argued that femininity was a social construction — "One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman." Her lifelong partnership with Jean-Paul Sartre and her existentialist philosophy shaped the intellectual life of postwar France.
Rachel Carson
American Marine Biologist & Author
Author of Silent Spring (1962), the book that launched the modern environmental movement by documenting the catastrophic effects of DDT and other pesticides on wildlife. Carson died of breast cancer two years after publication, having already changed the world; DDT was banned in America in 1972.
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