Video: 'Elijah P Lovejoy and John Brown in November 1837'

(Tuesday, November 7, 1837, at about 10:00 p.m. local time) — Abolitionist Elijah Parish Lovejoy was fatally shot by a pro-slavery mob tonight while defending Gilman & Godfrey’s warehouse, the site of his anti-slavery newspaper, the St. Louis Observer, in Alton, Illinois.

Lovejoy’s death at age 34 deeply affected many Northerners and greatly strengthened the anti-slavery cause.