The assassination of US President Abraham Lincoln, one of the most iconic figures in the country's history, has haunted millions for 150 years, as it's still one of the most fascinating bits of history - and now, a new John Wilkes Booth biography has shed some new light on the events.
Along with John F. Kennedy's assassination in 1963, Lincoln's has turned into one of the historic events that exerts the most fascination out of people, as it's been surrounded with conspiracy theories for a century and a half, many of which the author of the new John Wilkes Booth biography attempts to debunk.
According to NPR, the new John Wilkes Booth biography, entitled "Fortune's Fool: The Life of John Wilkes Booth" and written by expert historian Terry Alford, says that Booth wasn't the deranged madman that history has written him of as, but rather a well-respected and beloved actor in his time.
As International Business Times reports, the new John Wilkes Booth biography comes at a good time, as April 14 marked the 150th anniversary of the day the actor came up to the President at Ford's Theater, as he was watching the play "Our American Cousin" five days after the surrender of the Confederacy's General Lee.
The New York Times reports that the new John Wilkes Booth biography saw its author, Alford, research for nearly 25 years in different libraries and archives, besides immersing himself in the world of the "Booties," which is the way that conspiracy theorists and obsessives on the subject of Lincoln's assassin call themselves with pride.
While it's an odd place to look for scholarly information, Alford has revealed that he actually found some new sources, including a statement that one of Booth's co-conspirators had made at the time that was found in the attic of someone who descended from one of Booth's lawyers.
The new John Wilkes Booth biography also proves further that the actor was politically motivated to assassinate Lincoln instead of acting like a "lone, deranged madman" as many have wrongly said, but rather a strong Confederacy supporter who thought Lincoln was tearing up the best country in the world.
