US Presidents: Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865) was a US politician in the Republican party who was president of the US from 1861 to 1865. He won political support in the Northern states because of his speeches against slavery, but this made him unpopular in the Southern states where slaves did most of the farm work. The American Civil War started soon after he became president when the Southern states decided to leave the US. In 1863 he announced the Emancipation Proclamation , by which all the slaves in the US became free people. He also gave a famous speech known as the Gettysburgh Address in 1863. A few days after the war ended, he was shot and killed in a treatre by an actor called John Wilkes Booth. Lincoln is considered to be one of the most important US presidents, and was sometimes called 'Honest Abe' because everyone admired his honesty. His picture appears on the US five-dollar bill, and on the one-cent coin.
Lincoln's birthday is on February 12th and it is a legal holiday in many US states.

Did you know?

Abraham Lincoln was born in a log cabin. Most children learn this fact in school because it is supposed to show that you do not have to come from a rich powerful family to become President. The idea that any US citizen can become president is an important part of the way Americans think of their country.

* Lincoln Green

The term Lincoln green is not related to either the president Abraham Lincoln or America. It is a cloth of a bright green colour originally made at Lincoln in England.

Robin Hood and his merry men in Sherwood Forest, Nottinghamshire, are said to have worn this colour. It was produced by the dyers of Lincoln. "Coventry blue" and "Kendall green" were also famous colours linked with the dyers of English towns.