Kennedy and Lincoln: A list of Enigmatic Matches

 Many are the coincidences that unite the life and death of the American exponents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln

During the year 2000 and at the height of spam e-mails , a list of curious coincidences between the lives of Americans presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy went from one user to another as part of a heavy chain mail- trash . The e-mails titled "Kennedy and Lincoln were soul mates" bounced off the Internet, popularizing a series of data that revealed the strange coincidences between the lives of these two ex presidents.

Most of the data may seem irrelevant to most; however, it has been proven that the bulk of them are true.

John F. Kennedy in recording a message for radio and television, July 1963. 

According to Time magazine , the compilation began in 1964, shortly after Kennedy's death in late 1963, the Republican News Bulletin was in charge. At that time, the media built and published a list of similarities that spread among 15,000 readers. According to Edward Neff, editor of that bulletin, the reasons that moved them to make the publication were not political, but simply fueled by curiosity.

Such compilation has been subject to multiple revisions; however, only the following data have been confirmed as true:

100 years of difference

The list of coincidences starts with the coincidence of years in the political life of both presidents.

First, Abraham Lincoln was elected to the National Congress in 1846, and Kennedy reached that same position exactly 100 years later, in the Congress of 1946. Fourteen years later, the two former commanders won the country's election: Lincoln in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960.

The children of the president

The wives of the two ex-presidents lost a child while their husbands ruled in the White House. In the case of Abraham Lincoln, his son Willie Wallace Lincoln died in 1862 at age 11, due to typhoid fever, a disease that kept him in bed for several months. The disease was quite common at the time and Willie contracted it by eating contaminated food.

Just over 100 years later, Kennedy and his wife Jacqueline captured the attention of the United States during the emergency birth of the President's second child.

The baby was named Patrick Bouvier Kennedy and after a complicated cesarean, he was born with breathing problems. He died 39 hours after his birth, as a result of the so-called respiratory distress syndrome, a condition that has been eradicated thanks to advances in neonatal medicine

A portrait of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States. 

The data, relevant or not, have aroused as much curiosity as criticism. The bulk of them have been proven to be true.

Two of Johnson surname 

 The two vice presidents who succeeded Lincoln and Kennedy after their respective deaths, were named Johnson. Lincoln's successor was Andrew Johnson and the vice president who took over the Kennedy's administration was Lyndon Johnson. Another coincidence is that both vice presidents were born exactly 100 years apart. The first Johnson, in 1808, and Lyndon, in 1908. Both successors came from southern states of the country.

The Day of Murder

Both Lincoln and Kennedy died on a Friday. Lincoln, was assassinated on Friday, April 14, 1865, and Kennedy, on Friday, November 22, 1963. The two were shot dead in the back of the head and were in public acts in the presence of their wives.

The list adds that Lincoln was shot at the Ford's Theater, while Kennedy was shot while traveling in a Lincoln (Ford-branded car).

The murderers

Neither man guilty of the death of the ex-presidents was tried.

Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth was hit by a bullet while escaping from the cops, and Lee Harvey Oswald, the only one charged with Kennedy's murder, was shot dead in the stomach before he could enter prison.

Other coincidences complete this list, such as the fact that the surnames Lincoln and Kennedy have seven letters each, and the fact that their struggle always emphasized civil rights.

The data, relevant or not, have aroused as much curiosity as criticism. Those who do not believe in conspiracy theories claim that such a list of coincidences is just that: a curious compendium of coincidences. 

All my image sources are from Pinterest and Google.

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