Funeral directors are employed primarily at funeral homes, which are located virtually everywhere. They are responsible for a number of tasks involved with funerals, including writing obituaries, embalming bodies, arranging burials and more.
On this day in 1862, President Abraham Lincoln issues a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which sets a date for the freedom of more than 3 million black slaves in the United States and recasts the Civil War as a fight against slavery.
In July 1862, Lincoln informed his cabinet that he would issue an emancipation proclamation but that it would exempt the so-called border states, which had slaveholders but remained loyal to the Union.