Today is the 156th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address

Delivered on this day in 1863 by Abraham Lincoln at the dedication of the Gettysburg National Military Cemetery, the speech was considered a flop at the time. Its reputation grew over the years and is now considered to be one of the greatest speeches in the history of American politics.

Less known to the public at large in 2019, Lincoln delivered this speech while suffering from the beginning stages of smallpox. On the day, Lincoln reported himself feeling "weak" and "dizzy." By that evening, as he road the train to Washington, he was suffering from a debilitating fever that took him almost two months to fully recover from. While Lincoln ended up surviving his bout with the bloody pox, the man tending to him on the train did not. William Johnson, Lincoln's valet, became infected by the disease and died in late-January.