President Abraham Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

A 26-year-old actor named John Wilkes Booth shot Lincoln in the head while he was at the theatre in Washington D.C., five days after the Civil War ended.

Some in the South celebrated his death. Lincoln's Vice President Andrew Johnson replaced him, and struggled to reunite the country after the war.

During Reconstruction, Johnson was lenient to the Southern states, which led to restrictive "black codes" that ended up decimating the freedoms of freed slaves.