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.

There were five versions of the Gettysburg Address that were acknowledged by Abraham Lincoln in his lifetime. Here are those versions, along with the AP wire copy from November 1863.

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.

On this day in 1978, President Jimmy Carter officially restored the full citizenship rights of former Confederate president Jefferson Davis, signing an act from Congress that ended a century-long dispute.

A nearly fatal beating on the U.S. senate floor on this day in 1856 was another step toward a Civil War five years later. The attacker wasn’t an assassin—it was a fellow congressman.

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 153 years ago when 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 a Palm Sunday 153 years ago today, 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.