Free Republic

Visitors to a small log cabin in Kentucky are right to ask: Is it true that Abraham Lincoln slept here? On the eve of Lincoln's 209th birthday tomorrow, Brook Silva-Braga has the answer... "What we're trying to do is authenticate when this cabin was made by using the tree rings in the logs," he replied. Some say our 16th president, born in these hills in 1809, spent some of his childhood in this cabin at Knob Creek. But did he?... So no, Abraham Lincoln did not sleep here in the Knob Creek cabin … or in the "symbolic cabin" at...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) - It's Abraham Lincoln's birthday, and Illinois is celebrating by sealing up a time capsule and taking pictures of life across the state. Lincoln would have turned 201 today. To mark the occasion, officials are preparing a time capsule that will be stored at the Lincoln Presidential Library. It will include items such as birthday cards, photos and documents from the celebration of his 200th birthday. The time capsule is supposed to be opened in 2109. The Associated Professional Photographers of Illinois will also help celebrate. They're shooting Lincoln-themed pictures around the state today and will post...

Whether or not you believe that Abraham Lincoln was racist, his Emancipation Proclamation certainly propelled in motion the abolition of slavery and freedom of the African American. "That on the 1st day of January, A.D. 1863, all persons held as slaves within any State or designated part of a State the people whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free; and the executive government of the United States, including the military and naval authority thereof, will recognize and maintain the freedom of such persons and will do no act or acts...

At Ford's Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth, an actor and Confederate sympathizer, fatally wounds President Abraham Lincoln. The attack came only five days after Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his massive army at Appomattox, effectively ending the American Civil War. Booth, who remained in the North during the war despite his Confederate sympathies, initially plotted to capture President Lincoln and take him to Richmond, the Confederate capital. However, on March 20, 1865, the day of the planned kidnapping, the president failed to appear at the spot where Booth and his six fellow conspirators lay in wait. Two...