A while ago my friend showed me this article about the similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy. This past weekend I looked it up again. There are so many weird coincidences that it has led me to the conclusion that Americans are paranoid.
I think the weirdest coincidences were that of the assassins. Lincoln was shot in a theater named Ford and Kennedy was shot in a car called Ford. The bodyguards had left their post at the time. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and then ran to a warehouse. Oswald shot Lincoln from a warehouse and then ran to a theater. Both assassins were shot and killed before the trials.
The coincidences that convince me that the theory is a result of paranoia are those of the witnesses. The man who filmed the President's assassination was apparently named Abraham. Another man who ran along the car taking pictures sold Lincoln cars.
Comment below what you think and be sure to read the article:
http://www.whiteoutpress.com/timeless/lincoln-kennedy-similarities-and-coincidences714/
This is a really cool post post! I just wanted to add to the coincidences between Lincoln and Kennedy. First, Lincoln was elected to congress in 1846, Kennedy was elected in 1946. Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Kennedy in 1960. Both were shot in the head. Both were succeeded by southerners by the name of Johnson. Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, Lyndon Johnson was born in 1908. John Wilkes Booth (Lincoln's killer) was born in 1839, Lee Harvey Oswald (Kennedy's killer) was born in 1939. Coincidence?
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ReplyDeleteTalk about history repeating itself! But yes, I strongly believe that these similarities are just coincidences. The only reason that they seem crazy is because we're looking for something to point at and cry, "Fire!" (or you know, the historically equivalent phrase, though I really don't know what that would be). If we look at the entirety of history, at the thousands of years and billions of people and events that have happened, chances are that we're bound to find some things that seem oddly coincidental--but that's all they were and will ever be: coincidences.
ReplyDeleteGreat Post! I found a few more coincidences as well. Lincoln and Kennedy were both killed on a Friday. Both men were shot and succeeded by Southerners. Both assassins were known by their three names (John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald). However, what I found most interesting was that Kennedy's secretary warned him not to go to Dallas and Lincoln's secretary warned him not to go to the theater.
ReplyDeleteThis is such an intriguing topic, and I agree it all seems spookily similar. But like Katherine was saying, it's pretty easy to pick out random little details and get them to line up-- the way this article points out all the similarities makes it seem very eerie, but if you think of all the details that aren't mentioned–all the many, many differences–the picture of conspiracy kind of dissolves.
ReplyDeleteThis is a cool, yet slightly topic. Although there are a lot of coincidences, I feel like that no matter what the topic is you can find these types of things. You can find similarities between events no matter where you look at it. I feel like the conspiracies are due to people trying to figure out why and how these things happened to people so important in our history.
ReplyDeleteThanks for this post, it is very interesting! My favorite similarities were definitely the ones involving the assassination. It is especially fascinating because there have only been four presidential assassinations in history, and these two occurred in very similar ways. I also really enjoyed learning that Kennedy was elected into Congress exactly 100 years after Lincoln, and was also elected President exactly 100 years after Lincoln. The other similarities are also fun to learn about, but are less impressive. But as Sonnet and Varun mentioned, although these coincidences are impressive, there are really not that many similarities between the Presidents in the entire scope of everything about them.
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Rebecca! Its interesting how Americans seem to gravitate to conspiracies and note detailed similarities/coincidences and turn them into big deals. As Mr. Stewart discussed in class when we saw the documentary on Kennedy's assassination, Americans are drawn to conspiracy theories, ghost stories, and distrust of the government. Perhaps this notion of the government comes from the roots of our country. America was originally intended to be a coalition of states (as described in the Articles of Confederation and as exhibited by the diversity of the states), and therefore has no national commonality. We are more prone to see our government not as a controlling system, but perhaps as more of a removed protector. Either way, conspiracies, as many above have commented, may be merely people trying too hard to connect the dots that aren't really aligned. All these conspiracy theories may also be linked to paranoia--Americans are paranoid about the strangest things and not concerned about pressing matters. It is strange to think that something as imminent as global warming is so neglected whereas something as obscure as Ebola in the US is considered a prominent threat.
ReplyDeleteCoincidences are always fun, but you have to take into account that as humans we always look for patterns and seem to think that patterns are less likele. For example if we were to randomly choose a series of 9 numbers from a box with hundreds of numbers of digits 0-9, and our pick was 123456789 in that order, we would think it extremely improbable. However, the probability of this occurring is the same as that of 98786762. SO although it is fun and makes for great conversing, i think that coincidences like this should not have too much weight put on them. Great post tho.
ReplyDeleteCoincidences are always fun, but you have to take into account that as humans we always look for patterns and seem to think that patterns are less likele. For example if we were to randomly choose a series of 9 numbers from a box with hundreds of numbers of digits 0-9, and our pick was 123456789 in that order, we would think it extremely improbable. However, the probability of this occurring is the same as that of 98786762. SO although it is fun and makes for great conversing, i think that coincidences like this should not have too much weight put on them. Great post tho.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHCHEykUxP4
ReplyDeleteWhen I read your post, it made me think of this video. Coincidences are a lot more common than people think, and it is natural for a lot to pop up when people spend enough time searching for them. However, while I do think these are coincidences, there is nothing I can say to totally disprove that there may be a conspiracy at work behind the scenes.
Coincidences like the ones listed in this article do not necessarily mean that there is commonality between the two things or people that are being compared. After reading this article and the comments that followed I thought of one coincidence between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. These two men both died on July 4, 1826 only 5 hours apart from each other, not to mention that they were both founding fathers who died on July 4th. While they share this commonality these two men had very different political ideas and were often rumored to not like one another. Also the presidencies of Kennedy and Lincoln ended tragically and in the event of a tragedy many people look for something to make sense of it all and that could also be where this need to find coincidences come from. Also no one talks about the differences but we can probably find just as many differences between these two men as there are similarities. For example, the Lincoln's had 4 boys, only 1 of whom lived past his teens while the Kennedy's had three children, 2 boys and a girl, two of whom survived well into adulthood. Also, although they both had children who died in the White House they died from very different causes - Lincoln's fromTyphoid disease and Kennedy's at childbirth.
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