-
Birth
Abraham Lincoln was born near Hodgenville, Kentucky in a log cabin with one window, one door, a chimney, and a hardpacked dirt floor. -
-
Significant Person
He urged Lincoln to study law and later hired him as a junior partner in his law office in Springfield, Illinois. -
Significant Person
Mary Todd married Abraham Lincoln in front of a few close friends. -
Challenge
His boy Eddie, not yet four, died. Afterwards, Lincoln buried himself in his work. -
World History Event
The U.S. Sumpreme Court ruled that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in any of the nation's territories, because it would violate property rights guaranteed in the Constitution. -
Significant Person
Grace Bedell, eleven years old, wrote a letter to Lincoln saying to grow a beard. She was important because this helped Lincoln get votes for the election. -
Achievement
Lincoln was elected president of the United States. He went out into the streets of Springfield and was greeted by fireworks and torchlight parades. -
Challenge
The Civil War began which divided the country between the North and the South. Everyone believed that the war would end quickly but it did not. The war lasted almost exactly four years. -
Achievement
Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation which was the freeing of all slaves in the rebel southern states. -
World History Event
Lincoln delivered his two minute speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He felt it was a failure but did not realize his words would be remembered all over the world as an American classic more than a hundred years later. -
World History Event
The House of Representatives approved the amendment prohibiting slavery in the United States. Lincoln said it was a "great moral victory." -
Death
On Good Friday Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth at Ford's Theatre.
