John Wilkes Booth first met Abraham Lincoln in 1863. Booth was performing at Ford’s Theater. The actor glared at President Lincoln and even threatened and pointed his finger in his face. If that happened in modern times, the Secret Service would have paid Booth a visit, but they did not start protecting the president until Theodore Roosevelt’s administration decades later. So there was not that layer of protection and there was nothing stopping Booth from carrying out his plan two years later. 

Booth originally wanted to kidnap the president on March 20, 1865, as he was riding a carriage to a show at a hospital that was supposed to help wounded soldiers. There was a change and President Lincoln didn’t go, via History. So that made Booth mad, and General Robert E. Lee’s surrender turned his rage into a murderous one. Then he decided to murder the president as part of a plan that would include other people killing Vice President Andrew Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and Secretary of State William Seward. Grant was supposed to be a guest with the president at the theater, but he withdrew due to his wife not wanting to be in the same place as Mary Todd Lincoln, due to her supposedly insulting her. So Grant was not a target. Another conspirator attacked Seward, but he survived, according to CBS News. 

Who knows what would have happened if Booth’s original plan had worked? Would we have seen more of President Lincoln? It’s strange how certain twists can give us the history that we have today.