This strange story is about a series of uncanny coincidences which link two of America's most popular presidents: Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy...
Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, Kennedy was elected 100 years later, almost to the day in fact. After their deaths from assassination, both of these presidents were succeeded by Southerners with the surname Johnson. Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson, who was born in 1808, and Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon Johnson, who was born in 1908. Both Johnsons have 13 letters in their names and both of them served in the US Senate.
Mary Lincoln and Jackie Kennedy both had children who died while their husbands were in the White House.
Both Lincoln and Kennedy studied law.
John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald both had fifteen letters in their name, and were both Southerners, were both in their 20s, and of course, both assassins were shot before they could stand trial. Kennedy had a secretary named Miss Lincoln, and Lincoln had a secretary named John Kennedy.
Kennedy and Lincoln were both historic civil rights campaigners who were heavily criticised while in office but where glorified after they died.
On the day of the assassinations Kennedy and Lincoln made strange prophetic statements. Hours before Lincoln was shot, he said to his personal guard, "If somebody wants to take my life, there is nothing I can do prevent it."
And hours before Kennedy went to Dallas in 1963, he said to his wife Jackie, "If somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?"
And finally, both presidents were said to have been victims of a conspiracy. When Lincoln was shot, the telegraph lines out of Washington D.C. remained silent for three hours on the orders of a high-ranking official who has never been identified. It is thought this information blackout was arranged to give John Wilkes Booth - who was fleeing from the scene of the crime - a head start.
For offbeat stories from Liverpool writer Tom Slemen, go to these sites:
Ghost City 19
The Liverpool Valentine Ghost
The Devil in the Cavern Club
The Song that can Kill You
The Last Dance
The Welsh Werewolf
The Wail of the Banshee
The Phantom Matchmakers
The Thing in Berkeley Square
The Zodiac Murders Mystery
Cheshire Timewarps
Merseyside Timeslips
The Penny Lane Poltergeist
The UFO that Crashed in Wales
The Mysterious Spring-Heeled Jack
George Washington's Vision of the Future
The Rings on her Fingers
Mysteries of the Titanic - was she Torpedoed?
Who was Hannah Brade?
The Sad Tale of the Little Storyteller
The Dead of Night
Who Was Jack the Ripper?
Three Halloween Tales
Haunted by his Future Wife
A Marriage Made in Hell
Enigma of the Green Children
The Witch Doctor's Curse
Was Jesus an Extraterrestrial?
UFOs and the Old Testament
The Hippy Babysitter
The Sad Spectre of Smithdown Road
The Mysterious Mr Boon - a Victorian Robin Hood
The Man Who Fell to Earth
The Vanishing Eskimo Folk
The Lost Family
Star Trekkers of the Middle Ages
UFO Zones
The Ghosts of Christmas
The Finger of Suspicion
The Dark Side of Rock
The Legend of Mary Crane
From A Window
The Spectre of Fir Lane
The Real Doctor Who
Feel free to e-mail Tom personally with any comments or queries:Tom Slemen
