Have you ever heard about uncanny coincidences between the United States Presidents, John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln?
American presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln share some seriously freaky coincidences despite living some 100 years apart from each other.
Aside from sharing the same famous job title, and meeting untimely and tragic deaths during their tenures, Lincoln and Kennedy share some other weird overlaps.
Early lives
Abraham Lincoln
Both Lincoln and Kennedy served in Congress before ascending to the Oval Office, though that isn’t it all too surprising given their ultimate role as President. The two did also face intense Civil Rights challenges during their time as president.
Both men were elected to Congress in a ‘46 year; 1846 for Lincoln, Kennedy in 1946. And the two men were both elected to the White House in a ‘60 year; 1860 and 1960.
Lincoln and Kennedy both suffered the loss of a child while serving as President. Willie Lincoln died from typhoid fever at age 11 in 1862, and the premature baby of JFK and wife Jackie, named Patrick, passed away at just two days old in 1963.
Assassination similarities
While the shared similarity of public assassination is tragic enough, the two events have some strange underlying commonalities.
Both men were shot in the head - Lincoln at close range while attending a performance of "Our American Cousin", Kennedy from a distance while riding in an open-air Dallas motorcade.
Lincoln was seated in the theater box number seven of Ford’s Theater at the time of his death; Kennedy was riding in the seventh car of his motorcade.
Both men were killed on a Friday by a man with three names, Lee Harvey Oswald and John Wilkes Booth.
The aftermath
Despite both of the assassins initially escaping the murder scenes afterward, Lincoln’s killer and Kennedy’s killer were both killed before they made it to trial for their crimes.
The two assassins were born 100 years apart from each other - 1839 and 1939, similar to Lincoln and Kennedy’s parallel career timelines.
As is tradition, both Lincoln and Kennedy were succeeded by their vice presidents. However, both successors shared a surname: Andrew Johnson and Lyndon B. Johnson. The two successors were born a century apart from each other in 1808 and 1908.
Individually, none of these coincidences is all too convincing, but together, they provide a freaky tapestry of overlap for the two presidents who lived a century apart.
What do you think about the Lincoln and Kennedy similarities - freaky or just pure chance?
* Originally published in Sept 2018. Updated in Nov 2023.
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