Exactly 150 years ago today, Abraham Lincoln was elected president. His Republican ticket received only about 40 percent of the popular vote but it did carry an electoral-college majority. In Springfield, Ill., the news that New York had gone for Lincoln–thus guaranteeing his election–did not arrive by telegraph until about 2 a.m. (on Nov. 7). “I went home, but not to get much sleep,” recalled Lincoln, “for I then felt as I never had before, the responsibility that was upon me.”