What happens
On the night of April 14, 1865, President Abraham Lincoln attends a charity performance of the comedy Our American Cousin at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. Reporters move through the crowd outside and inside the theater, speaking with Lincoln, his guests, the theater staff and the presidential guard, John F. Parker. The play is interrupted by a shot from the presidential box, and the audience and the reporters rush to find out what has happened. The broadcast follows the confusion in the theater, then turns to reports from the Peterson House, where the wounded president has been carried, and to the wider alarm across the capital. The episode is in the You Are There series, first broadcast by CBS on December 14, 1947.
Ford's Theatre and the surrounding streets, Washington, D.C., April 14, 1865, and the Peterson House opposite the theater
Characters: Abraham Lincoln, John Daly, John Hollenbeck, Quincy Howe, Ned Crowe, John F. Parker, Clara Harris, Major Rathbone
Listen for: The sudden shot from the presidential box during the performance, and the reporters' accounts of the crowd's reaction as the news spreads
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.