The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865, was part of a larger conspiracy by John Wilkes Booth intended to revive the Confederate cause by eliminating the three most important officials of the United States government. Booth was a well known stage actor, and shot President Lincoln once in the back of the head while the president was watching the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Also present in the box, as guests of the president and First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, were Major Henry Rathbone and his fiancée Clara Harris.
This picture is a 4-by-3-inch (102 mm × 76 mm) glass-slide illustration of Lincoln's assassination, designed for projection in a magic lantern and dating from around 1900. From left to right, the figures depicted are Booth, President Lincoln, Mary Lincoln, Harris and Rathbone.Illustration credit: unknown, after T. M. McAllister; restored by Adam Cuerden