Today, is the 200th birthday of two great peoeple Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. Abraham Lincoln : Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 in Hodgenville, Kentucky. He spent most of his adult life in the North, working a series of odd jobs before becoming a lawyer and a leading Illinois politician. In 1860, he became the first Republican president of the United States. He successfully led the country through its greatest internal crisis, the American Civil War, preserving the Union and ending slavery. As the war was drawing to a close, Lincoln became the first American president to be assassinated in 1865. He introduced measures that resulted in the abolition of slavery, issuing his Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and promoting the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which passed Congress before Lincoln's death and was ratified by the states later in 1865. Charles Darwin: Born February 12, 1809, in Shrewsbury, England, he earned a degree in theology from C...