Today is Good Friday; today is also April 14. Today is also the anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s assassination, which occurred on April 14, 1865, which was also Good Friday. This is only the sixth time since 1865 that Good Friday has coincided with April 14, so today’s anniversary is even more vivid.
Imagine that five days ago, last Sunday, April 9, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Court House, officially ending the Civil War. People have been celebrating all week. Tonight, John Wilkes Booth makes his way into Lincoln’s box at Ford’s Theater and shoots him in the back of the head.
R.I.P., Abraham Lincoln.
It would be hard to imagine what that was like. As bad as times have been in the years since–and with two world wars and other terrible events, there have been some bad times–that was a period in American history that was like no other.