1 / 14 photos Abraham Lincoln

This is the earliest-known photograph of Abraham Lincoln, thought to have been taken in the mid-1840s.

"My earliest recollection is of the Knob Creek place," Lincoln said of his boyhood home, a log cabin in Kentucky. The 30-acre farm is now a historic site.

Sarah Bush Johnston became Lincoln's stepmother in 1819, a year after his biological mother died of milk sickness.

Most people believe that Lincoln sported a beard for the majority of his life, but in actuality he spent most of his life without facial hair. He only began growing his whiskers in 1860, during his run for president.

When Mary Todd married Abraham Lincoln, she was 23 and Lincoln was 33. The couple stayed together for 22 years and had four children together.

Thomas, the youngest of Lincoln's four children, was often given free reign of the White House. According to Washington lore, Thomas interrupted cabinet meetings, fell asleep in his father's office, and was allowed to commandeer soldiers for his personal "errands."

A large crowd gathered for Lincoln's inauguration on March 4, 1861, near the unfinished Capitol building. The nation eagerly awaited the President-elect's speech, to hear his stance on the newly formed Confederacy.

The Civil War started shortly after Lincoln's innaugural speech condemning secession from the Union. Allan Pinkerton, President Lincoln, and Maj. Gen. John A. McClernand (pictured left to right) were among the military leaders who helped lead the 1862 Battle of Antietam, one of the bloodiest battles of the war.

Lincoln delivered The Gettysburg Address on November 19, 1863, in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the midst of the Civil War. Because Lincoln wrote several drafts of the speech, scholars often debate the speech's exact wording.

Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address in less than two minutes, but his moving remarks concerning equality and human rights made the speech one of the greatest in American history. 

On April 14, 1865, at the close of The Civil War, actor John Wilkes Booth assassinated President Lincoln. Booth fled the scene, only to be captured and killed two weeks later.

Eight of the alleged assassination conspirators were captured by the end of April 1865. After a lengthy trial Mary Surratt, Lewis Powell, David Herold and George Atzerodt were sent to the gallows to be hanged.

With his death, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated. Ford's Theater was draped in black crepe to symbolize the country's mourning, and the building was later purchased by the federal government.

President Lincoln's body was transported from Washington, D.C., to his home in Springfield, Illinois. Millions viewed the funeral procession as it traveled through 180 cities and seven states.