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Today in History: In Operation Overlord, Allied forces invade Nazi-held France during WWII, 1944 https://www.loc.gov/item/today-in-history/june-06/?loclr=fbloc

From trials involving celebrities like Oprah (pictured) and Martha Stewart, to the likes of Charles Manson and the Son of Sam, the Library holds an extensive collection of original sketches by talented courtroom artists.
Explore the digital "Drawing Justice" exhibition: https://go.usa.gov/xJg8u?loclr=fbloc

in , 1865, Abraham was shot at Ford’s Theatre. Only one month prior, he declared: “With malice toward none, with charity for all...let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation's wounds.” Instead, he would soon succumb to his own; just one more casualty in “the great contest” where one party “would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish.”

His assassin was John Wilkes Booth, a 26-year-old actor from . At his mother's behest, the Southern sympathizer never enlisted. But he admitted to her, “I have begun to deem myself a coward and to despise my own existence.” He therefore sought to aid the cause by plotting to kidnap the .

But by April 1865, had fallen, and Robert E. Lee surrendered, making his plan unfeasible. Two days after Appomattox, Lincoln gave a speech to discuss the end of the and beginning of Reconstruction. Booth was there that day, along with two of his conspirators. When they heard Lincoln say he favored Black suffrage, Booth became irate and implored one conspirator to shoot Lincoln dead on the spot. When he was refused, Booth coldly responded, “Now, by God, I will put him through.”

Against his aides' advice, Lincoln chose to attend the theater that Good Friday. Upon learning of his intentions, Booth set in motion his conspiracy to decapitate the government. At 10:15 pm, one assailant was to kill Sec. of State Seward. Another was to kill VP Johnson. And Booth—who one year earlier starred in “Julius Caesar”—was to kill Lincoln. Their hope was to inspire the South to rise again. And Booth, quixotically, thought he'd be remembered as a new American Brutus.

But just as Brutus would not live long after murdering Caesar, neither would Booth live long after murdering Lincoln. Instead, he would only survive in infamy and villainy. While Lincoln, who Saved the Union and freed the slaves, forever “belongs to the ages.”