As a former police officer, private investigator and interrogator, I do not believe in coincidences. But after years of collecting odd and strange stories from just about everywhere on the planet it’s hard for me not to change my opinion. There are many weird and strange things that occur, and some people call them serendipitous, and others call them coincidences, I just don’t know what the hell to call them. With that thought in mind you be the judge.
On December 5, 1664, the first event in the greatest series of coincidences in history occurred. On this date, a ship in the Menai Straight, off North Wales, sank with 81 passengers on board. There was one survivor, a man named Hugh Williams. On the same date in 1785, a ship sank in the Menai Straight with 60 passengers aboard. There was one survivor, a man named Hugh Williams. On the very same date in 1860 in exactly the same area, a ship sank with 25 passengers on board. There was one lone survivor, a man named Hugh Williams.
In Louisville, Kentucky, three family members died in the same spot, on different dates. A woman was hit by a car, an accident that she survived, but that killed her six-week-old daughter. A few years later, the same woman was killed approximately two blocks away as she jumped from a moving vehicle for an undisclosed reason. But cruel coincidence continued when 20 years later the woman’s 19-year-old son died on the same street when his motorcycle hit a car full of college students.
The wife of Ulysses S Grant awakened on April 14, 1865, with the intense sense that she and her husband should get out of Washington, DC, as soon as possible. They left that day, even though it meant standing up President Abraham Lincoln’s invitation to the theater. That’s why Grant was not killed by John Wilkes Booth that evening when the actor assassinated the president. Booth’s papers later revealed that Grant was on his hit list.
I’ve collected a large amount of miscellaneous information over the years and have saved only a small percentage of it. I only keep things that are interesting to me and a little unusual. Many of you may have seen the following information in the past in one form or another but many have not. Since it’s a lazy day here in Maine I’m sending this along for your amusement and also because of my inability to motivate myself this morning. These facts are truly strange and go well beyond the level of coincidence. Read on and enjoy some gruesome American history.
Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846.
John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946.
Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860.
John F. Kennedy was elected president in 1960.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contains seven letters.
Both were particularly concerned with civil rights.
Both wives lost children while living in the White House.
Both Presidents were shot on a Friday.
Both Presidents were shot in the head.
Lincoln’s secretary was named Kennedy.
Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln.
Both were assassinated by Southerners.
Both successors were named Johnson.
Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808.
Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908.
John Wilkes Booth, who assassinated Lincoln, was born in 1839.
Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated Kennedy, was born in 1939.
Both assassins were known by their three names.
Both names were composed of 15 letters.
Lincoln was shot at the theater named Ford.
Kennedy was shot in a car called Lincoln.
Booth ran from a theater and was caught in a warehouse.
Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater.
Booth and Oswald were both assassinated before their trials.
And here’s the kicker
A week before Lincoln was shot, he was in Monroe, Maryland.
A week before Kennedy was shot, he was in Marilyn Monroe.
I’m not feeling too domestic today so gardens, food, and computers are off the menu. I’ve been paging though my library of interesting but useless facts and factoids. At first I couldn’t decide whether to supply all of you with unusual information about sex but I think I’ll save that for another day. Since I consider myself a patriotic citizen it was only logical (Thanks Mr. Spock) that I find as many odd and unusual facts about some of our great and no so great presidents.
With Obama on his way out (Yeah!)(Finally!) and the presidential election looming I felt we needed to reconnect with our American roots. Lets start if off with ten quick questions about some of our past presidents. I’ll list the questions first and the answers will be found at the end of this post.
Questions
1. How many bathrooms are in the White House?
2. What was the Secret Service’s code name for Barbara Bush?
3. What did Woodrow Wilson, Americas 28th president, denounce as a symbol of “the arrogance of wealth”?
4. President Gerald Ford pardoned Iva D’Aquino in 1977. Who was she?
5. President Lydon Johnson called his pet beagles Him and Her; what did President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife, Eleanor, name His and Hers?
6. What president was ticketed for speeding in Washington, D.C., while he was in office?
7. What did President John F. Kennedy commission Pierre Salinger to do on the eve of signing the Cuban Trade Embargo?
8. How many tons of jelly beans were purchased by the White House during the presidency of Ronald Reagan?
9. What did President Franklin D. Roosevelt have printed on the White House matchbooks?
10. Which American president was the first to have a telephone on his desk in the White House?
I found a few of the question interesting but the answers were even better. I’m sending this bonus trivia story along because it’s just do damn strange.
"On his way home from Harvard one day, Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of President Abraham Lincoln, fell off the platform while waiting for his train. He was saved from possible death by Edwin Booth, the actor, and brother of John Wilkes Booth – the man who, only a few weeks later, assassinated President Lincoln.”
Answers
1. 34
2. Tranquility
3. The Automobile
4. Tokyo Rose, the seductive-voiced Japanese radio propagandist during World War II.
5. The pistols they kept under their pillows.
6. Ulysses S. Grant, in his horse and buggy. He was fined $5.00.
7. Buy and stockpile 1,500 Havana cigars.
8. 12 Tons
9. “Stolen from the White House”
10. Herbert Hoover, in 1929. Previous presidents used an enclosed phone booth in the hallway outside the Oval Office.
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