This Day in History:<br /> John Wilkes Booth Shoots <br />Abraham Lincoln April 14, 1865 Booth shot President Abraham Lincoln <br />in the head during a performance of <br />'Our American Cousin,' at Ford's Theater <br />in Washington D.C. The Confederate sympathizer then jumped from the <br />balcony of Lincoln's booth, yelling "Sic semper <br />tyrannus," Latin for "Ever thus to tyrants." Booth injured his leg on the jump, <br />and hobbled out of the theater <br />to his getaway horse. Lincoln was carried to a <br />boardinghouse across the <br />street, where he died the next morning. His assassination was part of a <br />broader conspiracy to kill the major <br />heads of the Union government, <br />throwing the nation into disarray. Hiding out in a Virginia barn, Booth was shot and killed by Corporal Boston Corbett on April 26<br />after Union troops set the barn on fire.
