Assassin John Wilkes Booth killed President Abraham Lincoln by shooting him at Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. Lincoln died on April 14, 1865. The next morning, Vice President Andrew Johnson became the next president of the United States. Johnson became the first person to assume the presidency after the murder of a president. He followed in the footsteps of John Tyler and Millard Fillmore, as the third vice president to assume the presidency after his successor died in office. The key difference was that William Henry Harrison and Zachary Taylor died of natural causes, while Lincoln was assassinated.