Every April 14, on the hour of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the place where it happened is one of the loneliest historical sites in America.
I should know. I’ve been making disappointing anniversary pilgrimages to the scene for more than a quarter of a century. My first was in 1987, during my first spring in Washington, D.C., when my future wife and I were serving in the Reagan administration. After work, we walked to the then-seedy neighborhood surrounding Ford’s Theatre and discovered Geraldine’s House of Beef, a restaurant whose only attraction was a table near the front window that offered a clear view of Ford’s facade on Tenth Street NW. We decided to have dinner while we waited to see what would happen. Of course, we thought, a crowd would arrive soon to honor the most beloved president in American history. No doubt the National Park Service, which has administered Ford’s since 1933, would hold a solemn ceremony.
Nine p.m., nothing. Ten p.m.—about 20 minutes before the moment John Wilkes Booth fired his single-shot Deringer pistol at the back of the president’s head and changed the nation’s destiny—nothing. Then we saw movement. A station wagon turned onto Tenth Street. In it was a picture-postcard American family—two parents and two young children, a boy and a girl. As the car slowed and coasted past, the driver pointed out the window to the theater. The kids’ heads swiveled to their left and nodded up and down. The car drove on.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
