Andrew Johnson

17th President of the United States (d. 1875)

United States President Abraham Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, while attending the play, Our American Cousin, at Ford's Theatre as the American Civil War was drawing to a close. The assassination occurred five days after the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, General Robert E. Lee, surrendered to Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant and the Union Army of the Potomac. Lincoln was the first American president to be assassinated. An unsuccessful attempt had been made on Andrew Jackson 30 years before in 1835, and Lincoln had himself been the subject of an earlier assassination attempt by an unknown assailant in August 1864. The assassination of Lincoln was planned and carried out by the well-known stage actor John Wilkes Booth, as part of a larger conspiracy in a bid to revive the Confederate cause. Booth's three co-conspirators were Lewis Powell and David Herold, who were assigned to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward, and George Atzerodt who was tasked to kill Vice President Andrew Johnson. By simultaneously eliminating the top three people in the administration, Booth and his co-conspirators hoped to sever the continuity of the United States government. Lincoln was shot while watching the play Our American Cousin with his wife Mary Todd Lincoln at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.. He died early the next morning. The rest of the conspirators' plot failed; Powell only managed to wound Seward, while Atzerodt, Johnson's would-be assassin, lost his nerve and fled. The funeral and burial of Abraham Lincoln was a period of national mourning.

Abraham Lincoln dies after being shot the previous evening by John Wilkes Booth. Andrew Johnson is then sworn in as the 17th President of the United States.

U.S. politician Andrew Johnson makes his drunk vice-presidential inaugural address in Washington, D.C.

President Andrew Johnson formally declares the American Civil War over.

President of the United States of America Andrew Johnson vetoes the Civil Rights Act of 1866. His veto is overridden by Congress and the bill passes into law on April 9.

Andrew Johnson becomes the first President of the United States to be impeached by the United States House of Representatives. He is later acquitted in the Senate.

A court of impeachment is organized in the United States Senate to hear charges against President Andrew Johnson.

President Andrew Johnson is acquitted in his impeachment trial by one vote in the United States Senate.

The impeachment trial of U.S. President Andrew Johnson ends, with Johnson being found not guilty by one vote.

U.S. President Andrew Johnson grants unconditional pardon to all Civil War Confederate soldiers.

For the first time in U.S. history, the impeachment trial of an American president gets underway in the U.S. Senate. President Andrew Johnson, reviled by the Republican-dominated Congress for his views on Reconstruction, stood accused of having violated the controversial Tenure of Office Act, passed by Congress over his veto in 1867.