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