On November 24, 1784, future President Zachary Taylor was born in Virginia. Taylor became an unexpected obstacle to slavery’s expansion, until his sudden death in 1850.

On this day in 1863, Abraham Lincoln gave his Gettysburg Address, widely considered one of the greatest speeches in American history. But even today, there are still a few points about the speech that are misunderstood.

On November 6, 1860, voters in the United States went to the polls in an election that ended with Abraham Lincoln as President, in an act that that led to the Civil War. But Lincoln’s actual victory didn’t happen on that day, and his victory wasn’t assured for months.

Today marks the birthday of Ulysses Grant, who played a unique role in American history. Here is a look at a military leader who later became President in one of the nation’s most troubled decades.

On April 15, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln died from his assassin’s wounds. But if John Wilkes Booth’s plot were entirely successful, a little-known senator may have been thrust into the White House for almost a year.

It was on this day in 1865 that President Abraham Lincoln was shot while watching a play at Ford’s Theater. Lincoln died the next morning, and in the aftermath, some odd facts seemed to pop up.

On this day, Confederate General Robert E. Lee agreed to surrender his Army of Northern Virginia, marking a symbolic end to the Civil War.

On this day in 1793, young inventor Eli Whitney had his U.S. patent for the cotton gin approved, an invention that would definitely have an impact on social and economic conditions that led to the Civil War.

On March 11, 1861, delegates from the newly formed Confederate States of America agreed on their own constitution. And much of it mirrored the Constitution of the United States as it existed at the time.

On March 3, 1820, Congress approved the Missouri compromise, a law that maintained a balance in the Senate between free and slave states. The pact only lasted 34 years, and its elimination was one of the contributing factors that led to the Civil War.