This photo was taken in Springfield, Illinois in 1846 by photographer Nicholas H. Shepard. Historians claim that this was not only the first photo of his political career but also the first photograph of Lincoln ever taken. It was shot right after he had earned his seat in the United States Congress.

This first job in politics wasn’t a big success, however, evident by the fact that he only kept his position as the representative of Illinois’s 7th District for one term. The reason behind his lack of popularity was his firm stance against the Mexican-American War, which was declared several months prior to his first election into Congress.

The War started on April 25, 1846, and lasted until February 2, 1848. At the time, it was the first U.S. armed conflict which was fought on foreign soil. Then-President James. K. Polk wanted to expand the U.S. borders to gain more Mexican territory. He believed the United States had a “manifest destiny” to spread across the continent to the Pacific Ocean. In the end, the United States won the war with Mexico ceding huge pieces of land by signing the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848. These portions of land would later become the states of California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, and Colorado.

One of the things Lincoln had to do to get elected--so that he could fight for the abolition of slavery in the territories--was to debate his rival. On August 21, 1858 Abraham Lincoln and his adversary Democrat Stephen Douglas had their first of seven historic debates, which concentrated solely on the outlook of slavery in the United States.

Lincoln and Douglas had never gotten along, and not just when it came to American politics. It appeared that the two rivals were also each other’s fierce competition in the romantic sphere. They both harbored the same love interest, a beautiful Kentucky Belle named Mary Todd. Douglas soon learned that he was no match for the kind-hearted and good-looking Lincoln, who won Mary’s heart in no time.

This picture was taken in 1854 by photographer J.C.F. Polycarpus von Schneidau. By that time, Lincoln and Todd were already married for twelve years and had four sons together; Robert Todd (1843–1926), Edward Baker (1846–1850), William Wallace (1850–1862) and Thomas (1853–1871).

The president was known to be somewhat of a clown. Many people who crossed paths with him can confirm that he liked to crack a joke every now and then. One of his coworkers once said about his sense of humor,

 “Mr. Lincoln abounded in anecdotes, of which he seemed to possess an inexhaustible fun. His stories, though rude, were full of wit. He generally laughed as loudly as others at his own witticisms, and provoked laughter as much by the quizzical expression of his homely features.”  

To this day, his words are recalled often, and have become a popular quote remembered in difficult times. Unfortunately for Lincoln, his words didn’t have as much impact on the day of the speech as they did in the decades that followed, because he lost the election to his old opponent Stephen Douglas.

The little girl, named Grace Bedell, suggested the presidential candidate grow a beard. According to this pre-teen genius, it would get him more votes because it would hide his severe-looking lean face. In addition, it would attract more women because, “all the ladies like whiskers and they would tease their husbands to vote for you and then you would be President”

It was everything but silly, because after this picture was taken in 1861 it became one of the most famous photographs of Lincoln. It is now the most valuable photo out there of his likeness, and was auctioned off for over $200,000 in 2009.

Don’t worry if you can't find him--it took researchers about 150 years to do so. It was a former Disney animator, named Charles Oakley, who discovered Lincoln in this very rare, blurry photograph that was taken on November 19th, 1863. In it, you can see a dense crowd there to listen to the Gettysburg Address, almost 156 years ago.

The Gettysburg Address was a landmark speech on November 19, 1863 in which Lincoln celebrated the victory of the Union army over the Confederacy four months after the Battle of Gettysburg. He detailed his plans for what direction to take the young country in, making it one of the most important speeches in American history.

This unique picture almost didn’t get a chance to get taken, because there wasn’t much time to capture it in the moment. The Gettysburg Address, as impactful as it was, only lasted for two minutes and there was only one cameraman present!

It is said that the President used to have an unusual way of preparing for speaking events. As a busy man, in the little time he had to write speeches he just scribbled short ideas on a scrap of paper which he brought with him on the actual day. According to historians, at the Gettysburg Address Lincoln just picked a few of his scribbled thoughts out and made it into a speech on the spot. He didn’t think much of the impactful speech he gave, but at his funeral Senator Charles Sumner said,  “The battle itself was less important than the speech.”

On November 8, after all the votes were in, the results showed that with over 400,000 popular votes, Lincoln had the electoral majority and therefore won the re-election. One of the reasons for this victory was the fall of Atlanta on September 1, 1865, when Confederate forces had finally surrendered to Union forces.

It was also the first time in history that several states allowed their citizens, who were serving as soldiers in the field, to cast ballots. It was these Army soldiers who helped to give Lincoln more than 70 percent of the vote.

Thomas -- who earned the nickname “Tad” because as a baby he was “as wiggly as a tadpole”-- was one of Lincoln’s four sons. His other three sons were named Robert, Eddie, and Willie. Even though Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, he only had two sons who outlived him. Eddie passed away in 1850 and Willie in 1862, while he was still alive. Little Tad outlived his father but only by six years; he passed away in 1871 as a result of heart failure.  

During the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Booth fell from the balcony and broke his leg. However, it didn’t stop him from fleeing the crime scene. In the alley next to the building, he mounted a horse and disappeared. Later he was joined by a large network of conspirators. They helped conceal his escape from the Union soldiers, who were on the hunt for the killer of America’s beloved president. It took one thousand soldiers and twelve days before Booth was found in a tobacco barn on a farm in Virginia.

On April 26, 1865, the Union soldiers were led to the barn, and after Booth signaled that he was ready to fight back, the soldiers set the barn on fire. Booth managed to emerge from the burning barn but was shot in the neck as soon as he exited. The hunt for Abraham Lincoln’s killer turned out to be one of the biggest manhunts in the history of the United States.

Booth was a native of the state of Maryland, where slavery was still partially permitted before the Civil War. He hated everyone who thought it should be abolished and thought they were trying to sabotage and destroy the country he loved so much. Therefore, Booth wanted to breathe new life into the Confederate cause by getting rid of the three most important officials of the United States government: Secretary of State William H. Seward, Vice President Andrew Johnson, and of course, President Abraham Lincoln. Seward emerged wounded but victorious, while Johnson’s attacker got cold feet and didn't execute the attack on the Vice President.

This picture was taken only four days before Lincoln’s death on April 10, 1865. According to Lincoln's personal secretary, John G. Nicolay, and his Assistant Secretary, John Hay, the picture was not taken by Alexander Gardner, but by another photographer called Henry F. Warren. It supposedly was taken on the south veranda of the White House, on the second war-free day, one of the five days Lincoln was able to enjoy before his untimely death, the day after Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse.

If you look at Lincoln’s pictures, you’ll notice that he didn’t smile a lot. In some of them you can spot the tiniest of grins but most of the time he had a more somber and drawn expression on his face. Walt Whitman, who was an American poet, essayist, and journalist in Lincoln's time, once described his look and facial expression as“a deep latent sadness.” This last picture is no exception. It’s almost as if Lincoln knew that his days were numbered.

This picture is one of the photos that Gardner took on that day. It consists of what appears to be two photographs of the procession. It’s a technique that photographers from that era used to create special effects in a picture. This technique was called “stereoplate” and was done by placing two pictures side by side, about the distance between your two eyes, and then on top of each other to create more depth.

This photo was taken when the train arrived in Philadelphia. There, Lincoln’s body was laid out in his coffin in a very special location. Nearly 90 years prior to the day Lincoln arrived in Philadelphia, the Declaration of Independence was signed in the east wing of the Independence Hall, on August 2, 1776. And that’s exactly where mourners could say goodbye to Lincoln in 1865.

Lincoln’s coffin wasn’t the only one being transported to Springfield, IL. His son Willie’s remains were on the train as well. Willie had passed due to typhoid fever in the White House three years prior at the young age of eleven, during Lincoln’s second year in the office. His coffin was disinterred so that he could be buried next to his father.

It would eventually take the train two weeks to travel 1,654 miles and finally arrive at its destination on May 3, 1865. Due to the long journey, Lincoln’s body became discolored and had to be restored by an undertaker before the body could be laid out for local mourners who wanted to pay their final respects to their former leader.

The next day, May 4th, though President Lincoln was buried in his home town, the only two relatives who attended the actual funeral, his son Robert and his cousin John Hanks. His widow, Mrs. Lincoln mourned the death of her husband back in Washington, D.C., in the White House.

The Lincoln Memorial was designed by the American architect, Henry Bacon. It has 36 Colorado marble columns, which represent the number of states in the Union at the time of Lincoln’s death. The enormous seated statue of the President, which was designed by the American sculptor, Daniel Chester French, is nineteen feet high and made of Georgia white marble. It was assembled from 28 separate pieces which were mounted on a Tennessee marble pedestal, which you can see in the photo above.

The monument is situated on the Reflecting Pool, right across the Washington Monument, and near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Korean War Veterans Memorial. It has several of Abraham Lincoln’s famous addresses inscribed on it walls; on the south wall, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address is engraved, and on the north wall you can find his Second Inaugural Address.

On August 3, 1963, right from the memorial's steps, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his famous “I Have A Dream” speech to a massive group of more than 200,000 civil rights marchers gathered around the monument. Lincoln played a huge part in the ending of slavery in the United States due to his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. Lincoln saw slavery as a crucial issue and made it his goal to find a way to abolish it without dividing the country.

But let’s face it, even if this wasn't the place where Lincoln was born, he came from humble beginnings. The original cabin couldn’t have been much bigger than the one pictured above, which can still be visited today. It only had one room for the whole family to live in. By the time the ‘new’ cabin was built, Lincoln was probably living a much more comfortable life, because he was finishing up his time in the House of Representatives by then, plotting for the presidency that would change America forever.

Any secret room is an exciting discovery, but the story of the room and its curious location in the house brought the intrigue to another level. This room revived a 200-year-old controversy that has been in the shadow of the president’s legacy and brought it back into the light.

In many ways, it is hard to imagine America as we know it without Jefferson’s contributions. Without him, the country may have even returned to the rule of a monarchy. While his legacy is well deserved, some aspects of his life, like many historical figures, are not easy to reckon with.

On the property was the plantation house where the owners lived, as well as the slave quarters. As was customary for a plantation owner at the time, Jefferson had hundreds of slaves who lived on the property. That Jefferson owned so many slaves is an uncomfortable fact of history, but the controversy does not end there. It has been rumored that there was one slave in particular to who Jefferson had taken a liking, and because of these rumors, the secret room was an especially alluring discovery.

When the number of visitors to the museum increased in the 1960s, the bathroom was further renovated, but the secret room still went undiscovered by the new construction crews. It wasn’t until an old document was unearthed by historians that gave a clue that the Monticello Plantation may be holding a secret.

The room was said to be in the plantation house’s south wing. Archaeologists were initially skeptical, as Randolph is often considered to be an unreliable source. However, this is an unlikely thing for him to lie about, and the addition of the restroom inspired the archeologists to investigate further, to discover what lies beneath.

It took a team of historians and archeologists devoted to uncovering Monticello’s original layout to find a hidden room that was, surprisingly, not so hidden. In fact, it was right behind the bathroom which has received numerous renovations over the years.

At around 15 by 13 feet, the room had no windows and featured a large brick oven in the center. The most interesting element of the room was its location. While the house was large and a room could have been placed anywhere, this room happened to be right down the hall from Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom.

A widow starting over with someone new may not sound scandalous, but Callender’s claim was that Jefferson’s new affair was with one of his slaves. Callender said she was Jefferson’s “concubine” who had come to the plantation as a child.

The discovery of the room played right into Callender’s allegations. It is possible that this room is where Jefferson and his slave secretly met, and where his illegitimate children were conceived. A small room that Jefferson had easy access to is just the sort of place a secret relationship can blossom.

One particular line lends credibility to this theory. As Adams discusses Jefferson’s reasons for resigning as secretary of state, Adams writes that Jefferson may be “summoned from the familiar society of Egeria.” In the time of the Founding Fathers, “familiar” was a euphemism meaning “intimate,” and Egeria refers to a nymph in Roman myths who has secret meetings with a king. Jefferson’s affair was certainly ripe for innuendo.

Sally Hemings was half white, half black, and like most African Americans at the time, her life was not easy. She was born into slavery and was brought to Monticello as a young girl where she was forced into household labor.

In Heming’s secret bedroom, historians discovered evidence that confirmed an old rumor. When Sally Hemings was 14 years old, she joined Thomas Jefferson on a trip to France. Her life would never be the same.

Given the legal circumstances, Hemings could have stayed in France. However, she made the choice to stay a slave owned by Jefferson and return to the United States. It is possible that she did not feel she had a real choice or found the idea of living on her own and starting a new life too daunting and beyond her means. It is also possible that something sparked between her and Jefferson, and returning to the United States was her real desire.

Hemings and Jefferson both lived at Monticello for years, where Hemings had five more children whom Jefferson was most likely the father of. It is also believed that it was in the mystery room that the births took place.

Also, the difference in power between the two parties is so vast, and the highly unequal world she was brought up in may make a relationship with Jefferson seem like her best option, regardless if it is what she wanted in her heart. She was given preferential treatment over other slaves and lived a relatively better life than most women born in her position. We can only speculate about her true feelings.

Jefferson had over 600 slaves that he owned on his plantation. However, very few of them were ever freed, and among those were Sally Hemings and her children when they became of age. In addition to their freedom, they received a stipend to help them start new lives after leaving Monticello. Whatever other evidence there is, and however she felt about him, Hemings was certainly close to Jefferson’s heart.

Despite being granted her freedom, Hemings stayed at Monticello until Jefferson’s death. It is not clear if she wanted to stay or if she had an agreement with Jefferson. One way or another, Hemings and Jefferson had a relationship that greatly impacted them both.

Probably because he wanted to hide the truth, Jefferson is not listed on the children’s birth records. Without a paper trail, it is hard to determine if he is their actual father. However, with the names of Sally Heming’s children, historians have made efforts into tracking down their descendants and tracing their genetic lineage, getting one step closer to understand the full nature of the relationship between Jefferson and Hemings.

Having not come of age in Jefferson’s lifetime, Eston Hemings was granted freedom after Thomas Jefferson’s death. With his fair skin tone, being three-quarters white ancestry, Eston could pass as a white man and integrate into society. His life as a free man was a successful one, and he was married with three children. He even becomes known for his resemblance to his famous, deceased father.

There were rumors that Eston was Thomas Jefferson’s son. One journalist made it his goal to uncover the truth, and he wanted to hear words straight from Eston’s mouth about the subject. An unknown man comes to Oklahoma looking like a former president. This was the hottest story in town.

“Well, my mother, whose name I bear, belonged to Mr. Jefferson, and she never married.” Eston moved with his wife and children to Wisconsin, where they lived on a property they would come to own. Not known to him at the time, Eston was the key to solving the mystery of Jefferson and Heming’s relationship.

The DNA tests finally gave some solid evidence. Eston was indeed related to Thomas Jefferson. Without more evidence, it is impossible to confirm, but it is highly probable that Jefferson in fact fathered all of Hemings’ children. The truth is beginning to take some shape.

While this news was of great interest to the world, the family was not surprised. The idea that they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson was passed down through the generations with stories of their family history. DNA evidence gave them confirmation, but there was never any actual doubt. However, there were some skeptics still waiting for more evidence.

After extensively reviewing the documents, the foundation put forth its theory. They claimed that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings hardly knew each other at all and that he did not father her children. In a twist worthy of Jerry Springer, the foundation claims that it was Randolph Jefferson, brother of Thomas Jefferson, who fathered the children of Sally Hemings.

While their theory is plausible, they do not have much evidence to suggest that Randolph was the father, and the other side of the story just looks a whole lot stronger. When you look at the rumors and add the discovery of the bedroom and the letters from John Adams, it is hard to discount it for an entirely different explanation that lacks the same supporting evidence.

Madison Hemings was another of Sally Hemings’ sons. Unlike his siblings, he identified as black and did not try to live in a white society. He moved with his mom to Charlottesville, Virginia after Jefferson died, where he worked as a farmer and carpenter. With a wife and children, he moved to Ohio, a free state, following the death of his mother.