April 9, 1865 - Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, Virginia. The surrender was not actually signed in a courthouse but rather in the home of Wilmer McLean. Appomattox Courthouse was the name of the village which served as the county seat for Appomattox County. Although hostilities between the Northern states and the Southern states continued for a short time after the surrender of General Lee, the event is regarded as the end of the Civil War. The Civil War was by far the deadliest war in all of American history. Approximately 625,000 Americans lost their lives during the conflict, more than all conflicts since combined.

April 11, 1986 - A deadly shootout between eight FBI agents and two serial bank robbers led to significant changes in the weapons used by law enforcement agencies around the country. After chasing the outlaws during a five-month crime spree of robbing banks and armored trucks, a team of FBI agents converged on Miami, Florida, where they believed the suspects were hiding. Agents spotted the suspects' car and were able to force it off the road. Armed only with their service pistols and two shotguns, the agents faced an onslaught of fire from the heavily armed suspects. The ensuing battle found the agents outgunned and pinned down, despite the fact that they outnumbered the suspects four to one. The suspects were able to continue fighting despite receiving multiple injuries -- one suspect was killed after being shot 6 times while the other did not die until he had been shot 12 times. When it was over, two FBI agents were dead and five others seriously wounded. The subsequent investigation placed partial blame for the agents' deaths on the lack of stopping power exhibited by their service pistols, which led to the FBI's use of larger-caliber firearms. In addition the FBI determined that because of the difficulties of reloading a revolver while under fire, agents should be armed with semi-automatic handguns.

April 14, 1865 - Five days after General Lee surrendered to General Grant at Appomattox, President Abraham Lincoln was shot in Ford's Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. He died nine hours later. Lincoln's assassin had also plotted with fellow conspirators, Lewis Powell and George Atzerodt, to kill Secretary of State William H. Seward and Vice President Andrew Johnson respectively. Although Booth succeeded in killing Lincoln, the larger plot failed. Seward was attacked, but recovered from his wounds, and Johnson's would-be assassin lost his nerve and fled Washington, D.C. Two weeks prior to the assassination Lincoln dreamed that he had been assassinated. His description of the dream to his wife and friends can be read here.

Side Note