An audio tour accompanying National Archives' major traveling exhibition: "Eyewitness - American Originals from the National Archives," 2006-2008, produced in collaboration with Acoustiguide, Inc. Out of the stacks and vaults of the National Archives and its Presidential Libraries, comes this selection of original, first hand, eyewitness accounts. Vivid and intensely personal, they chronicle some of the most dramatic moments in history. The exhibition presents the original documents; the audio tour brings these compelling documents to life: you will hear Thomas Jefferson's account of the French Revolution, reported from Paris in July 1789; the poignant account of Abraham Lincoln's doctor describing the President's condition after he was shot on April 14, 1865, in Ford's Theater; and Laura Ingalls Wilder's description of the journey she made with her family by wagon from South Dakota to Missouri in 1894. You will also hear Congressman John Lewis himself weaving his own spellbinding account of what happened on March 7, 1965 - the day that has gone down in history as "Bloody Sunday-when he led a demonstration for Voting Rights in Selma, Alabama; and President Jimmy Carter reading from his personal diary about his private meeting with Pope John Paul II on October 6, 1979. The instinct to tell what we have seen is as old as humanity. Americans from every generation have handed down their stories in untold numbers. Millions of them are preserved in the stacks of the National Archives waiting to be shared. Within them lie embedded messages that enlighten us on what has gone before, and strengthen us for what may lie ahead.
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