Ford's Theatre is a theater located in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1863. The theater is best known for being the site of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. On the night of April 14, 1865, John Wilkes Booth entered the theater box where Lincoln was watching a performance of Tom Taylor's play Our American Cousin, slipped the single-shot, 5.87-inch derringer from his pocket and fired at Lincoln's head. After being shot, the fatally wounded Lincoln was carried across the street to the nearby Petersen House, where he died the next morning.

On April 14, 1865, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth while attending the play Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Shot in the head as he watched the play, Lincoln died of his wounds the following day at 7:22 am in the Petersen House opposite the theater. He was the first U.S. president to be assassinated. His funeral and burial were marked by an extended period of national mourning.