FORD'S THEATER, Ford's Theater

Hello, my name’s Rick, and I’m your personal guide. Along with MyWoWo, I’d like to welcome you to one of the wonders of the world, Ford’s Theater.

Originally the building was home to the First Baptist Church of Washington, but it was later transformed into a theater by the impresario John T. Ford. Its fame is owed to the fact that it was here, on April 14, 1865, that the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, was assassinated.

Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd, exactly five days after the end of the Civil War, were watching a comedy show called “Our American Cousin” from the presidential box when a famous actor of that time, John Wilkes Booth, entered and shot Lincoln in the head. He then proceeded to jump onto the stage and exclaim: “Sic semper tyrannis”, the phrase that Brutus was–wrongly–believed to have uttered before stabbing Julius Caesar, which means “this is the fate of tyrants”.

The actor, who would be killed 11 days later while hiding on a farm in Maryland, was part of a plot put together by fanatics who did not accept the defeat of the Confederates in the South....