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He is born in a one-room cabin in the woods near Hodgenville, Kentucky. -
He runs for his first political office, in the Illinois state legislature, and loses. He wins election in his second attempt, in 1834, and then wins reelection three times thereafter. -
At age 33, he marries after a long courtship and a broken engagement. They go on to have four sons, only one of whom lives to adulthood. -
He wins election to the U.S. House of Representatives. During his two-year term, he introduces legislation to end slavery in the District of Columbia. -
He wins the presidency on November 6, defeating three other candidates. Alarm spreads through the Southern states. They fear that the president will abolish slavery. They decide to secede from, or leave, the Union. South Carolina becomes the first state to secede from the Union on December 20. -
The American Civil War rages, claiming as many as 850,000 lives from battle and disease. Although the Union has more people and more soldiers, the Confederates win military victories early in the war. Eventually, the Union prevails. The president earns the nickname “The Great Emancipator” for his role in bringing about the emancipation of the slaves. He also wins reelection in 1864. -
Pro-slavery advocate John Wilkes Booth shoots Lincoln during a theater performance. Lincoln dies the next morning. “Now he belongs to the ages,” his secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, reportedly says. -
The second of nine children, he was reared in a family that demanded intense physical and intellectual competition among the siblings. -
He graduated from Harvard University. -
In May 1952, at a dinner party hosted by mutual friends, Jacqueline Bouvier and this person (then a senator) were officially introduced to each other. Jacqueline and John began dating, and on June 25, 1953, they announced their engagement.