While University students may find the week that celebrates Thomas Jefferson's birth one filled with festivity, this week also ushers in more unfortunate incidents, including the assassination of a fellow president and the sinking of a very big ship.
It was just like any other Friday evening in Washington when Lincoln and his wife arrived to attend the play "Our American Cousin" at Ford's Theatre April 14. Little did anyone know, though, that a group of men led by John Wilkes Booth had been planning the president's death for a long time in a highly organized conspiracy. To add another dramatic twist to the story, Booth himself was a regularly employed actor at the theater and plotted and timed all of his movements according to the comedic timing in the play.
At the predetermined moment, Booth entered Lincoln's presidential box, spoke the infamous line "Sic semper tyrannus" and shot the president. Afterward, Booth leapt out of the box down to the stage to escape via his well-plotted route. After several weeks of an intense and frustrating nationwide search, Booth and his accomplices were eventually captured and executed.
Today, people from all across the country travel to Washington to visit Ford's Theatre and the house across the street where Lincoln died soon after. Tourists can view artifacts including bloodstained cloth and personal articles belonging to Booth in the attached museum.
"It's a museum as well as a working theater," second-year College student Connie Migliazzo said.
Tumultuous events like this may fade from the public eye as time passes, but society continues to remember them through memorials, monuments and visual tributes. Though the first assassination of a president in American history is certainly a serious landmark, there are those who experienced much bigger wounds this week in history.
This week also commemorates the 95th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. During the colossal ship's maiden voyage from Southampton, England to New York City, the captain and crew ignored numerous iceberg warnings while traveling through seasonally dangerous water. After fatally bumping up against an iceberg and fracturing the ship's side, the Titanic sank, taking over 1.500 victims along with it.
News of the Titanic's sinking spread quickly across the world. It not only devastated the families of the victims but also led to the enactment of many ship regulation laws, including lifejacket and lifeboat regulations.
While the catastrophe made world headlines throughout the early 20th century, today the Titanic's legacy lives on mainly through its recreation in books and movies, most notably the 1997 film with Leonardo DiCaprio.
"You'd hear about it today definitely, but I don't think it is something people would have taken interest in without the movie," third-year College student Heather Colandrea said. "It's the same thing with Atlantis -- if there weren't movies made, then people wouldn't want to know more about it."
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