President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on this day in 1865. John Wilkes Booth, a successful actor and Confederate sympathizer from Maryland, shot the president in the head while he was attending a comedy play at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. It was the first assassination of a U.S. president, and it set off a dramatic manhunt that would reveal a conspiracy to save the Confederacy from its then-sure defeat.
Booth brandished a dagger after shooting Lincoln, but an army officer shoved the assassin to the edge of the balcony, forcing him to jump. Booth broke a bone in his leg in the process but managed to mount his horse and disappear. Meanwhile, the president was taken to a boarding house and was treated by doctors but died the next morning.
Booth fled more than 90 miles over 12 days, chased the whole way by federal troops. He'd pass through Maryland before he was tracked down to a barn in Port Royal, Va. He refused to surrender, saying "I prefer to come out and fight." They tried to smoke him out, literally, by setting fire to the barn. Booth wouldn't leave, though, so they shot him. They hit in the neck; he died in three hours.
You can learn more about the chase at this timeline from the National Park Service.
