As luck would have it, I ended up booking an airbnb rental a block from Ford’s Theatre while in DC for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies conference (hotel rooms are crazy expensive this week perhaps due to Cherry Blossom mania). Tonight returning to “my apartment” I turned the corner onto 10th Street and came upon thousands of people attending a candle light vigil complete with mourners in civil war era garb and performance artists recounting the events of 150 years ago this evening, April 14, 1865, when at 10pm local time President Lincoln was shot, dying the next morning across the street.

NEW YORK POST
Editorial Board
April 14, 2015

President Abraham Lincoln died 150 years ago today, after John Wilkes Booth shot him the night before to avenge the Confederate defeat in the Civil War. The anniversary brings to a close the sesquicentennial commemorations of that war — perhaps the most important episode in American history, one that forged a nation yet also left much injustice standing, wounds that mark the country to this day. Which makes it odd that President Obama didn’t take part in a single Civil War commemoration over the past four years. It’s not just that he’s the first African-American president. It’s that throughout his political career, Obama has deliberately linked himself with the 16th president. He launched his first presidential campaign from near Lincoln’s law office. He pointedly gave a major speech in New York’s Cooper Union, site of Lincoln’s first major national address. He took a train from Philadelphia to Washington for his inaugural, again intentionally echoing Lincoln. And he twice took the oath of office with Lincoln’s own Bible in his hand. READ MORE