Johanna Maria “Jenny” Lind was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on October 6, 1820, the illegitimate daughter of Niclas Jonas Lind (1798–1858), a bookkeeper, and Anne-Marie Fellborg (1793–1856), a schoolteacher.
When Lind was about nine years old, her singing was overheard by the maid of Mademoiselle Lundberg, the principal dancer at the Royal Swedish Opera. An audition was arranged and she was accepted into the acting school of Stockholm's Royal Dramatic Theatre.
She made her operatic debut in 1838 in Carl Maria von Weber's Der Freischutz (The Freeshooter) and by the age of 20, she was a member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Music and court singer to the King of Sweden and Norway.
Her voice was damaged from overwork, and in 1841 Lind went to Paris to study with the illustrious teacher Manuel Garcia.
She toured Denmark in 1843 where she met Hans Christian Andersen. The Danish children's writer met and fell in love with her, but Lind did not reciprocate his romantic feelings. She is believed to have inspired three of his fairy tales: Beneath the Pillar, The Angel and The Nightingale.
Lind was admired equally for her skilled coloratura (singing ornately embellished music) in opera and oratorio and her appealing style in simple songs.
Lind as Amina in La sonnambula in the 1840s
Lind's most popular role was in Meyerbeer's Robert le Diable (Robert the Devil), and when she sang it in London in 1847 it was reported that the town "went mad about the Swedish nightingale."
Lind was idolized by the public both in opera and in concert, but she considered opera to be immoral and refused to sing evil roles.
She gave up the operatic stage in 1849. Lind's last opera performance was on May 10th of that year in Robert le diable; Queen Victoria and other members of the Royal Family were present.
Queen Victoria was so fanatical about Jenny Lind she would cut short formal dinners to rush across town in order to see the "Swedish Nightingale."
In 1850 P. T. Barnum brought Jenny Lind to America. 4,476 tickets were auctioned for the first concert by the "Swedish Nightingale", soprano in her tour of the United States. On May 29, 1852 she eventually left New York after her unprecedented two-year American tour.
Under Barnum's management Lind gave 93 concerts in America; for these, she earned about $350,000, and he netted at least $500,000. She donated her profits to her chosen charities, principally the endowment of free schools in Sweden.
Lind's devotion and generosity to charitable causes remained a key aspect of her career and greatly enhanced her international popularity even among the unmusical
Lind married her accompanist, Otto Goldschmidt, on February 5, 1852, near the end of the tour, in Boston. She took the name Jenny Lind-Goldschmidt both privately and professionally.
Jenny Lind and Otto Goldschmidt
Lind and her husband moved to England in 1855. There she appeared in oratorios and recitals.
Soprano Jenny Lind by Eduard Magnus, 1862
Lind retired from singing in 1883 (her last public appearance was at a charity concert at Royal Malvern Spa) and taught at the Royal College of Music in London until 1886.
Jenny Lind died, aged 67, at Wynd's Point, Malvern, Worcestershire on November 2, 1887 and was buried in the Great Malvern Cemetery to the music of Chopin's "Funeral March." She bequeathed a considerable part of her wealth to help poor Protestantstudents in Sweden receive an education.
Abraham Lincoln was born in a one roomed log cabin, on Sinking Spring farm at Hodgenville, Kentucky, It is now a national historic site open to the public. He was the first president to be born outside of the original 13 colonies.
Symbolic log cabin in memorial building
Abraham Lincoln was born on the same day as Charles Darwin: February 12, 1809.
Lincoln was born into an illiterate and wandering frontier family. His father, Thomas was a farmer.
Throughout his life Lincoln was convinced he was illegitimate. It was only after his death that he was discovered to be legitimate after all.
Thomas Lincoln lost farms three times after boundary disputes due to defective titles and Kentucky's chaotic land laws. Discouraged by these setbacks, he decided to move his family to Spencer County in Indiana in December 1816, when Abraham was 7-years-old. There he was able to purchase land that was secured in accordance with the land ordinance of 1785.
Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks Lincoln, died of milk sickness on October 5, 1818, age 34. after her family dairy cow ate poisonous mushrooms and she drank the milk. Her 9-year-old son Abraham assisted his father in the making of her coffin by whittling the wooden pegs that held the planks together. 11-year-old Sarah cared for Abraham until their father remarried the next year.
Nancy Hanks Lincoln depiction
On December 2, 1819, Thomas Lincoln married Sarah "Sally" Bush Johnston, a widow from Elizabethtown, Kentucky, with three children of her own. Abraham became very close to his stepmother, whom he referred to as "Mother."
Lincoln's sister Sarah died on January 20, 1828, while giving birth to a stillborn son.
As a child on the frontier young Abraham lived mostly on wild game, however he didn't like shooting animals so he tended to pick berries, wild fruits and nuts.
As a youth, Lincoln disliked the hard labor associated with frontier life, preferring to spend his time reading. He did enjoy climbing the rocky cliffs or roaming in the pine forests where he lived.
School was a treat for young Abe, when his family could spare him or his elder sister from their chores. Most of his education came from an itinerant school master in Indiana, a simple school where the pupils chanted their lessons learning to read, write and do sums.
Lincoln wrote in one of his schoolbooks
"Abraham Lincoln
His hand and pen
He will be good but
God knows when."
Abraham Lincoln hated being called "Abe."
EARLY WORKING LIFE AND LEGAL CAREER
Lincoln: "My Father taught me to work, but not to love it, I never did like to work And I don't deny it, I'd rather read, tell stories, crack jokes, talk, laugh anything but work."
At the age of 15 Lincoln worked on James Taylor's ferry crossing the Anderson river for 37 cents a day.
Two years later, Lincoln built his own boat and took a cargo of produce to New Orleans where he sold the produce and boat and returned home in style by steamboat.
In 1831 Lincoln was hired, along with his stepbrother and a cousin, by Denton Offutt, a New Salem merchant, to take goods by flatboat from New Salem, Illinois, to New Orleans via the Sangamon, Illinois, and Mississippi rivers. The pay was 50 cents a day plus a fee of $60.
Offutt was impressed with Lincoln's abilities. When they returned to Illinois, he hired Lincoln as a clerk in a general store in New Salem, which sold cotton, cigars, candles, whiskey and the like He was paid $15 plus sleeping quarters.
Lincoln later opened a general store in New Salem with William F. Berry as his partner. The venture failed and when Berry died in 1835, Lincoln was left responsible for debts amounting to $1100. It took him several years to pay them off.
After the general store failed, Lincoln was appointed postmaster of New Salem. As postmaster, Lincoln earned $60 a year plus a percentage of the receipts on postage.
In 1834 Lincoln entered the Illinois legislature and began to study law.
Abraham Lincoln, the 27-year-old son of an illiterate and wandering frontier family with less than 12 months of schooling was admitted to the bar in 1836. He practiced law in Springfield, Illinois.
As a young lawyer, every morning before walking slowly to his untidy law office, Lincoln stood in the doorway to let his wife inspect him. His shirt, which she made, was fresh, his boots polished, his suit and stovepipe hat brushed.
During his time as a Lawyer in Springfield, Lincoln was walking into town, when he was overtaken by a man driving in the same direction. Lincoln hailed him and said "Will you have the goodness to take my overcoat into town? "
"With Pleasure, but how will you get in it again?"
"Oh very easily! I intend to remain in it."
By the fall of 1844, Lincoln was tired of being a junior partner. He had worked for senior partners with political ambitions, and Lincoln wanted a younger partner to whom he could relate. In October of that year Lincoln invited his friend William Herndon to form a partnership, which lasted until his death.
As a Lawyer, Lincoln was never greedy for fees and discouraged unnecessary litigation.
Abraham Lincoln invented a device for lifting riverboats over obstacles in shallow water. He was awarded on May 22, 1849 a patent for "A Device for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals." It never got past the patent stage, but he was the first and only president to hold a patent.
Patent Model of Abraham Lincoln's Invention, never actually built. By David and Jessie - Wikipedia Commons
Lincoln was the only U.S. president who was also a licensed bartender. He co-owned a store/drinking establishment in New Salem, Illinois, called Berry and Lincoln, with his friend William F. Berry. In 1833, they obtained bartending licenses for $7 each, and the store became a tavern as well. They offered a wide range of alcoholic beverages as well as food, including takeout dinners. However, Berry became an alcoholic, was often too drunk to work, and Lincoln ended up running the store by himself. Although the economy was booming, the business struggled and went into debt, causing Lincoln to sell his share.
POLITICS
Lincoln began his political career in 1832 with a campaign for the Illinois General Assembly. The centerpiece of his platform was the undertaking of navigational improvements on the Sangamon in the hopes of attracting steamboat traffic to the river, which would allow sparsely populated, poor areas along and near the river to grow and prosper. Lincoln finished eighth out of 13 candidates (the top four were elected),
Lincoln's second campaign in 1834 was more successful. He won election to the state legislature; though he ran as a Whig, many Democrats favored him over a more powerful Whig opponent.
Lincoln served four successive terms in the Illinois House of Representatives as a Whig representative from Sangamon County.
Lincoln in his late 30s as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Photo taken by one of Lincoln's law students around 1846.
In 1846, Lincoln was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served one two-year term. He was the only Whig in the Illinois delegation.
Lincoln returned to practicing law in Springfield in 1848, In the 1850s he was a familiar sight dressed in black cloak, red sash, large black boots and a black high hat, in which he crammed his legal documents and also a writing pad, pen and pencil for noting down odd thoughts as they came to him. He called his hat his “walking office”
Drawing on remnants of the old Whig party, and on disenchanted Free Soil, Liberty, and Democratic Party members, Lincoln was instrumental in forging the shape of the new Republican Party.
Lincoln became famous in the 1850s as a speaker on the Illinois circuit and was subsequently invited to run for President.
Abraham Lincoln gave a speech at the Bloomington Convention on May 29, 1856, in Bloomington, Illinois. The speech is believed to have been an impassioned condemnation of slavery but it was so enthralling that reporters in the audience stopped taking notes and now we don't know its content.
Lincoln’s celebrated speech at New York’s Cooper Union on February 27, 1860 played a central role in bringing him to national prominence and catapulted him into contention for the presidential nomination. Lincoln won the Republican nomination in 1860 and subsequently won the presidency.
The Cooper Union (2007). By I, DavidShankbone, CC BY-SA 3.0, Commons Wikipedia
MARRIAGE
In 1835, a wave of typhoid hit the town of New Salem. One of the victims was Lincoln's first sweetheart, tall, auburn haired Ann Rutledge, who died at the age of 22 on August 25, 1835. Ann Rutledge's death was a major turning point in Abraham Lincoln's life. He was deeply in love with her, and her death devastated him. He sunk into a deep depression and for many years afterwards, he was on the edge of flipping.
There are many stories about how Lincoln coped with his grief. Some say that he would often go to her grave and sit there for hours, just thinking about her. Others say that he would write poetry about her, or that he would talk to her as if she were still alive.
Lincoln met Mary Owens from Kentucky when she was visiting her sister. He courted her for a time in the mid 1830s but they both had second thoughts about their relationship. On August 16, 1837, Lincoln wrote Mary a letter suggesting he would not blame her if she ended the relationship. She never replied and the courtship ended.
In a 1838 letter to Mrs Browning that Lincoln penned after he was rejected by Mary Owens, he wrote: "I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying and for reason. I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me."
In 1839, Lincoln met the aristocratic, vain, plump and pretty Mary Todd, who was from a wealthy slave-holding family in Lexington, Kentucky. They found they had a lot in common as both loved literature, poetry and politics.
A wedding was set for January 1, 1841, but canceled when the two broke off their engagement at Lincoln's initiative. Lincoln fell into a state of depression.
Lincoln and Mary later met again at a party and married on November 4, 1842, in the Springfield mansion of Mary's married sister.
Mary Todd Lincoln, age 28
Mary was a hysterical and madly jealous wife and she refused her husband to receive female visitors alone. It has been argued that part of Mary's difficult nature could be blamed on her being infected by syphilis by Lincoln, in the early days of her marriage.
Lincoln kept several pairs of gloves for his wife in his pockets. Her need for cleanliness meant she had to change them several times daily.
A compulsive shopper, Mary Todd Lincoln, ran up huge debts that she tried to hide by falsifying bills and misappropriating federal funds.
The faithful Lincoln said of Mary: "My wife is as handsome as when she was a girl and I a poor nobody then fell in love with her and what is more I have not fallen out."
Mary Todd was the first presidential wife to be referred to as the First Lady. She was so disliked in her day she was nicknamed the “she-wolf”.
They had four sons, who were spoiled by their devoted parents and annoyed the whole neighborhood with their rowdy behaviour.
Eddie died a month before his fourth birthday on February 1, 1850, in Springfield, probably of tuberculosis. "Willie" Lincoln died of typhoid fever on February 20, 1862 aged 11. The Lincolns' fourth son, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln, died of heart failure at the age of 18 on July 16, 1871.
Robert Todd Lincoln was the only one of Lincoln's sons to reach adulthood. He was a successful politician, lawyer, and businessman. Robert Lincoln was Secretary of State 1881-85 and Minister to Great Britain 1889-92,
BELIEFS
Self educated, much that Lincoln leaned was from his Bible, which from his childhood years onwards he read to such an extent that the spirit of the phrases and its dignity passed into all his pronouncements and utterances.
Lincoln was shaped by evangelical culture and had a true faith. He spoke and thought in biblical terms despite not regularly attending a church or belonging to a particular denomination.
Addressing rumors that he mocked Christianity, Abraham Lincoln once published a broadside on his religion: "That I am not a member of any Christian Church, is true; but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures; and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general, or of any denomination of Christians in particular ..."
According to the biography Abraham Lincoln, the Christian by William J. Johnstone, Lincoln came to faith later in life. He said: "When I left Springfield I asked the people to pray for me. I was not a Christian. When I buried my son, the severest trial of my life, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ. Yes, I do love Jesus,"
A fervent anti slavery supporter, Lincoln was very fervent in his beliefs. "When I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally,” he said.
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 emancipated all the slaves within reach of his northern armies, thereby interpreting the American Civil War as a crusade against slavery.
Abraham Lincoln was the first President to use the phrase, "This nation under God." It inspired President Eisenhower, in 1954, to add the words "one nation under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance.
PRESIDENCY
Lincoln's 1861 inaugural at the Capitol. The rotunda was still under construction.
On November 6, 1860, Lincoln was elected the 16th president of the United States, defeating a deeply divided Democratic Party. He was the first president from the Republican Party.
Lincoln's victory on an anti slavery ticket was entirely due to the strength of his support in the North and West; he won only two of 996 counties in all the Southern states.
After Lincoln's election as President on an anti slavery ticket,, seven States (South Carolina, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Louisiana) formed the Confederate States of America. When the United States refused to surrender Fort Sumter in South Carolina, the Confederates attacked the fort, beginning the American Civil War.
At first things went badly as defeat followed defeat. Lincoln frantically borrowed military textbooks from the Library of Congress in a desperate attempt to master military strategy.
In the later months of 1862, Lincoln was irritated by General George B McClellan's inactivity against the southern Confederate forces. In the end he wrote McClellan a single sentence letter. "If you don't want to use the army, I would like to borrow it for a while. Yours respectfully, A Lincoln "
When a deputation of Southerners remarked to Lincoln, "We trust sir that God is on our side, Lincoln replied ""Sir my concern is not whether God is on our side. My great concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right."
The first photographic image of the new president
With the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, Lincoln ordered the freedom of all slaves in those states still in rebellion during the American Civil War. As the Union army advanced, nearly all four million slaves were effectively freed.
During the early days of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg, a nervous Lincoln paced up and down as the battle reports pour in. With the fate of the United States in the balance, Lincoln retired to his room, locked the door and got down on his knees in prayer. He told God that he had done all he could, now the result was in his hands; that if this country was to be saved, it was because he so willed it. The burden fell off his shoulders, his intense anxiety was relieved and in its place came a great trustfulness.
The Battle of Gettysburg in 1863 turned the Civil War. Possibly the biggest contributing factor to this turnaround was the enlistment of the African American slaves after the Slavery Emancipation.
Lincoln's Gettysburg Address was scribbled on the back of an envelope, whilst travelling from Washington to Gettysburg and was audible only to those standing next to him. It was 266 words in length and was given at the Gettysburg battlefield which was being dedicated as a national ceremony.
Lincoln is largely responsible for the institution of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. In 1863 responding to a Boston editor’s campaign for a holiday to promote piety, patriotism and economic growth, he declared the final Thursday in November of that year to be a day of Thanksgiving.
Lincoln was re-elected president in 1864 and re-inaugurated March 4 1865. Soon afterwards, it appeared likely that the Union would win the Civil War. On April 9 1865, the leading Confederate general, Robert E. Lee, surrendered his armies. to General Grant at Appomattox, Virginia.
Lincoln was assassinated just five days after the southern confederates surrendered to the Union.
APPEARANCE AND CHARACTER
At 6ft 4in, Lincoln was the tallest US President ever, half an inch taller than Lyndon Johnson.
Lincoln was very lean and stooped, his left shoulder being higher than his right. His arms seemed too long for his body and his walk was graceless. He had sallow complexion, cauliflower ears, a mole on his right cheek and large feet.
Abraham Lincoln wore size 14 shoes, the biggest in U.S. president history.
Many people believed Abraham Lincoln was ugly, including himself. Once, when he was accused of being "two-faced" during a debate, he replied, "If I had two faces, would I be showing you this one?"
Lincoln did not look like a leader of a nation, and he was conscious of this. During the 1860 Presidency campaign he said "Nobody ever expected me to be President. In my poor lean, lank face nobody has ever seen that any cabbages were sprouting."
When running for the Presidency, Lincoln was invited to grow a beard, to look more dignified. Lincoln objected, not liking hair under his chin, calling it "a piece of silly affection", but was persuaded in part thanks to a letter from 11-year-old Grace Bedell dated October 15, 1860. After that he had a beard but no mustache or stubble under upper lip. He was the first American president to have a beard.
During his presidency Lincoln became well-known because of his large stovepipe hat. He used his tall hat to store papers and documents when he was traveling.
His trousers were always too short for his gangling frame and he was considered to be America's worst ever dressed president.
Lincoln wore eye glasses in private but didn't like to in public.
Lincoln spoke in a mid western country accent with a high pitched voice, which was described as shrill, sharp, and unpleasant. Lincoln spoke slowly, allowing his words to be understood and considered. He recognized the value of a slow pace in public addresses. Despite its high pitch, Lincoln's voice was noted for its ability to carry over crowds, making him an effective orator in an era without amplification.
As a youngster, Lincoln was a funny mimic of local characters and travelers, especially of preachers and politicians.
A great raconteur, he loved cracking bad jokes. Lincoln had an endless supply of jokes and witticisms, which he told in a knee slapping way.
Lincoln was famous for his self-deprecating sense of humor. When accused of being two-faced, Lincoln replied, “Honestly, if I were two-faced, would I be showing you this one?”
HOMES
Abraham Lincoln was born in a one roomed log cabin, 16ft long & 18ft wide. In 1811 the Lincoln family moved to a log cabin farm house at Knob Creek, Kentucky then five years later to another log cabin a 18 ft by 20ft farm house in Spencer County, Indiana.
In 1830, after economic and land-title difficulties in Indiana, Abraham Lincoln and his family settled on government land along the Sangamon River on a site selected by Lincoln's father in Macon County, Illinois, near the present city of Decatur. The following winter was especially brutal, and the family nearly moved back to Indiana. When his father relocated the family to a nearby site the following year, the 22-year-old Lincoln struck out on his own, canoeing down the Sangamon to homestead on his own in Sangamon County, Illinois (now in Menard County), in the village of New Salem.
Abraham Lincoln, lived in Springfield from 1837 until 1861, when he went to the White House as President. Early on in his marriage to Mary they were living in one room at the Globe tavern.
In 1844 the couple bought a light tan frame house on the edge of Springfield, near Lincoln's law office for $1,200. Mary Todd Lincoln kept the home, often with the help of a relative or hired servant girl
HOBBIES AND INTERESTS
The thin and gaunt president cared nothing for food and had to be prodded to eat, however he enjoyed entertaining and he and his wife Mary gave large dinner parties.
The American president loved music. His favorite song was "Dixie", which was played at his inauguration.
His favourite sport was wrestling. Many years before he became the President, Lincoln was famed for his wrestling ability. Lincoln was reputed as an elite fighter among the New Salem, Illinois, locals, eventually earning his county's wrestling championship.
After one victory, Lincoln reportedly challenged the crowd, saying, "I’m the big buck of this lick. If any of you want to try it, come on and whet your horns.” The challenge went unanswered.
Lincoln was touted as being defeated only once in roughly 300 matches and has been inducted into the Wrestling Hall of Fame.
It is said that when a delegation of politicians called on Abraham Lincoln to inform him of his nomination for the Presidency, he was engaged in a game of baseball and kept the men waiting until he had had another chance to make a base hit.
ANIMALS
When he was a lawyer, an out of town case required Lincoln to hire a horse from the local livery stables. Returning the animal he asked the livery man whether he kept the horse for funerals. "Certainly not" said the owner indignantly. "I am glad to hear it" said Lincoln, "because if you did the corpse would not get there in time for the resurrection."
Lincoln loved cats. He had four of them while in the White House including one called Tabby.
He once let one of his moggies eat from the table during a formal White House dinner. When his wife told him that it was “shameful in front of their guests,” he replied “If the gold fork was good enough for former President James Buchanan, I think it is good enough for Tabby.”
He adopted a stray dog called Jip who he found shivering in the snow during a visit to a Civil War battle front near his home in Springfield.
Lincoln had a brown and yellow dog named Fido during his time in the White House. A drunk knifed Fido to death several months after his master was murdered.
HEALTH
After his first sweetheart Ann Rutledge died, Lincoln had a nervous breakdown and he was taken home to his parents to recuperate. For many years afterwards he lived on the verge of insanity. His suicidal tendencies were so great that he refused to carry a pocket knife.
The lean and lank president had Marfans Syndrome, a hereditary disease of the tissue, which caused abnormally long limbs, vision disorders and cardiac ailments.
He had a slight squint in his left eye caused by a kick from a horse.
DEATH AND LEGACY
Five days after General Lee's surrender, on April 14, 1865, Lincoln went to attend the play Our American Cousin by English playwright Tom Taylor with his wife at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C.. During the third act of the play, John Wilkes Booth, a well-known actor and a Confederate spy from Maryland, entered the presidential box and fired a pistol at point-blank range into the back of Lincoln's head.
Shown in the presidential booth of Ford's Theatre, from left to right, are assassin John Wilkes Booth, Abraham Lincoln, Mary Todd Lincoln, Clara Harris, and Henry Rathbone.
No one paid much attention until Booth jumped from the president's box, onto the stage below and shouted "sic sem per Tyrannis" (Latin, for "the South is avenged") . In jumping such a height Booth broke his leg, but he managed to escape from the rear of the theater. There was a moments hush then a scream and Mrs Lincoln pointed to the limping assailant, shouting "he has killed the president," It was the screams of Mrs Lincoln, which disclosed the fact that the President had been shot. The entire audience and the actors rushed onto the stage and towards Lincoln's box to find the President slumped dead.
After remaining in a coma for nine hours, Lincoln died at 7:22 am on April 15th.
The last words Abraham Lincoln heard were "you sockdologizing old man-trap," a punchline from the play. Our American Cousin.
At the same time as the attack on Lincoln, there was an assassination attempt on his Secretary of State William H Seward by a conspirator of Booth.
Ulysses S. Grant and his wife Julia were invited to attend Our American Cousin by Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865. They declined to attend because neither one of them could stand Mary Lincoln.
Queen Victoria after hearing of the assassination of Lincoln reacted sympathetically "These American news are most dreadful and awful!" said the Queen. "One never heard of such a thing! I only hope it will not be catching elsewhere."
Abraham Lincoln's corpse was sent on a two-week funeral tour across America, shown openly to thousands. In the course of the trip the body visibly decomposed, bloated, and darkened. In New York alone, Lincoln's "immense" hearse was escorted by 160,000 people as it was drawn through the city.
A funeral train carried the president’s body back home to Springfield, Illinois where he was buried in Oak Ridge Cemetery. He was the first American president not to leave a will.
Lincoln's son, Robert, was present at Washington Rail Station, when President Garfield was shot. Twenty years later, Robert was invited to bring his family to meet President William McKinley. As they arrived, they heard the news "The President has been shot". Robert Lincoln observed "There is a certain fatality about Presidential functions when I am Present."
The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., featuring a sculpture of Abraham Lincoln by Daniel Chester French, opened in 1922..
Lincoln monument in Edinburgh’s Old Carlton Cemetery in Scotland was the first statue of an American president to be constructed outside of the United States.
Samuel J. Seymour, the last surviving witness of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, lived long enough to be interviewed on national television on February 9, 1956. He didn't realize the president had been shot, but he felt bad for Booth, thinking Booth had fallen out of the box, when he jumped down to escape.
The (Abraham) Lincoln family line has been extinct since December 24, 1985, when its last undisputed descendant, Robert Todd Lincoln Beckwith, died without any children.
In 1532, a group of Spanish conquistadors led by Francisco Pizarro defeated the Inca ruler Atahualpa and took over his Empire. Pizarro chose the RÃmac valley as the location for the capital of the lands he'd conquered for the Spanish Crown. Ciudad de los Reyes (City of the Kings) (present-day Lima) was founded on January 18, 1535.
The National University of San Marcos, the oldest continuously functioning university in the Americas, was founded in Lima, on May 12, 1551.
Oil painting commemorating the foundation of the University of Lima (later named San Marcos),
During the next century Lima flourished as the center of an extensive trade network which integrated the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru with the rest of the Americas, Europe and the Far East. The resulting economic prosperity of the city was reflected in its rapid growth, population expanded from about 25,000 in 1619 to an estimated 80,000 in 1687.
A powerful earthquake destroyed most of the city buildings in 1687. The earthquake marked a turning point in the history of Lima as it coincided with a recession in trade and growing economic competition with other cities such as Buenos Aires.
Lina Medina was the youngest confirmed mother in medical history, giving birth at the age of five years, seven months and 17 days. Medina's son was born by cesarean section in a Lima hospital in 1939.
The world's worst football riot occurred in 1964 during a Peru v Argentina match in Lima after an unpopular decision by the referee. It ended with 300 fans killed and more than 500 injured.
Riots broke out in Lima, on February 5, 1975 after the police forces went on strike the day before. The uprising (locally known as the Limazo) was bloodily suppressed by the military dictatorship.
With a population of almost 10 million, Lima is the most populous metropolitan area of Peru, (Around one-third of the Peruvian population live there)
Lima is the third largest city in the Americas, just behind São Paulo and Mexico City.
Lima is considered the gastronomical capital of Latin America because its inherited traditions from pre-Hispanic and colonial cultures blended with Western and oriental cooking.
Lightning is a powerful natural electrostatic discharge of lighted streaks produced during a thunderstorm.
Lightning isn't just found in thunderstorms - it's been seen in volcanic eruptions, forestfires, heavy snowstorms, and in large hurricanes.
SCIENCE
A lightening bolt can generate temperatures up to five times hotter than can be found on the surface of the sun.
The typical bolt of lightning heats the atmosphere to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit.
You always see lightning before you hear thunder because light travels at more than 299 million metres per second, while sound moves at just 340 metres per second.
The number of seconds between when you see lightning and hear thunder divided by 5 = how many miles away the lightning is.
The visible flash that you see when lightning strikes is actually from the ground up to the clouds, not from the clouds down to the ground.
5% of lightning strikes are positively charged, and they can be up to 10 times stronger than a negatively-charged bolt.
FREQUENCY
Lightning strikes our planet somewhere more than seventeen million times every day, or about two hundred times every second.
The spots on the planet with the highest amount of lightning are Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
. The U.S. city with the highest rate of lightning strikes per capita is Clearwater, Florida.
HUMAN RELATED
The worst lightning strike disaster in the 19th century occurred on June 26, 1807, when lightning struck a fortress in the Luxembourg city of Kirchberg during the Napoleonic wars. The fortress was stockpiled with weapons and ammunition and when it was struck by lightning, the ammunition burst into flames causing a huge explosion. The blast and the ensuing raging fire completely destroyed two blocks, igniting other fires in adjacent properties and causing the deaths of over 300 people.
In 1919, having pitched eight and two thirds innings in a game against the Philadelphia Athletics, Cleveland Indians pitcher Ray Caldwell was struck by lightning. Despite being knocked unconscious, he refused to leave the game. He went on to record the final out for the complete-game win.
WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair survived a lightning strike in the late 1970s. He was in Richmond, Virginia for a match against Ricky Steamboat, and had just exited a plane when he was struck by lightning. The lightning bounced off his umbrella and hit a man behind him in the eye, killing him.
On November 2, 1994, a lightning strike in Egypt led to 469 deaths after oil tanks were ignited and flooded the village of Dronka with burning fuel. The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) attributes the death toll of 469 to the lightning strike and notes the incident is the highest mortality event as a result of a lightning strike on record (dating back to 1873).
The score during a October 1998 football match in the Democratic Republic of Congo between Bena Tshadi and Basangana was 1-1 when suddenly lightning struck the pitch. All eleven Bena Tshadi players were killed while the the athletes from Basanga came out unscathed.
Lightning strikes can produce severe injuries, and have a mortality rate of between 10% and 30%, with up to 80% of survivors sustaining long-term injuries.
Over the last 20 years, the United States averaged 51 annual lightning strike fatalities, placing it in the second position, just behind floods for deadly weather.
Lightning hasn’t brought down an airplane since 1967 because modern planes possess a fuselage that acts as a Faraday cage, which is a container that blocks electromagnetic fields. The charge instead runs around the outside of the craft and disperses from the tail.
Men are struck by lightning four times more than women.
Fear of thunder and lightning is 'astraphobia'.
A person struck by lightning is more likely to suffer from Motor Neurone disease.
According to an interview he gave to Newsweek, Jim Caviezel was struck by lightning while filming the Sermon on the Mount scene for the Passion of the Christ movie.
You are 100 times more likely to be struck by lightning standing under an oak than a beech.
FUN LIGHTNING FACTS
Early Roman law stipulated that anyone who was killed by lightning would not receive a proper burial.
Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod was blamed by religious leaders for the 1755 Cape Ann earthquake off the coast of Colonial Massachusetts. They claimed his "heretical rods" interfered with the "artillery of Heaven" and deprived God of using lightning as "tokens of His displeasure."
In the late 1770s fashionable women of Paris never went out in blustery weather without a lightning rod attached to their hats.
The longest duration for a single flash of lightning is 17.102 seconds. It was documented on June 18, 2020, within a thunderstorm over Uruguay and northern Argentina. This record-capturing megaflash was captured by NOAA's GOES-16 satellite, which is able to detect lightning flashes by sensing the light and heat emitted by the lightning.
The longest lightning strike on record unfurled on October 22, 2017. The "megaflash" spanned 829 kilometers (515 miles) across several U.S. states, originating in eastern Texas and reaching nearly to Kansas City, Missouri. It was officially certified by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) in July 2025 as the longest lightning strike after researchers re-analyzed satellite data. Before this 2017 flash was discovered in the archives, the record was held by a 477-mile (768 km) flash that occurred over the southern U.S. in April 2020.
Five per cent of lightning strikes are positively charged, and they can be up to ten times stronger than a negatively-charged bolt.
A bolt of lightning contains enough energy to toast 160,000 pieces of bread.
Lightning is the cause of most forest fires.
Lightning fertilizes plants. When lightning strikes, it rips nitrogen bonds in the atmosphere and the rains carry them into the soil.
Carnivorous animals will not eat another animal that has been hit by a lightning strike.
The ancient Chinese made the first practical use of natural gas for lighting purposes around 500 B.C. where they used bamboo pipelines to transport and carry both brine and natural gas for long distances.
During the late 18th century there were several successful attempts in Europe to derive gas from coal for lighting. A Scottish engineer William Murdock (1754–1839), who was employed by the firm of Boulton and Watt, was one of the first to achieve a sustained practical application.
By 1794 Murdoch was producing coal gas from a small retort containing heated coals with a three or four-foot iron tube attached, through which he piped the gas before sending it through an old gun barrel and igniting it to produce light.
The first industrial factory to be illuminated by gas was the Philips and Lee cotton mill in Manchester which was fully lit by Murdoch in 1805.
Murdoch never made any money from this invention because of his failure to obtain a patent.
London was the first city in the world to adopt gas street lights. On January 28, 1807 Pall Mall became the first street in the world to be lit by gaslight. Baltimore was the first city outside England to adopt gas street lights ten years later.
Below is "A Peep at the Gas-lights in Pall Mall", a humorous caricature of reactions to the installation of the new invention of gas-burning street lighting on Pall-Mall.
The phrase "In the limelight" means the center of attention. In the early days of theater, a limelight was a device used to brightly illuminate the front of a stage, which put the main performer in a spotlight. The light was made by focusing a flame at a cylinder filled with lime that was projected through a lens. Lighting technicians had to be creative in the days before electricity.
Gas lighting first appeared in the White House in 1848, during the administration of President James Polk. This exciting new technology brought brighter and more controllable light than candles or oil lamps, which had previously illuminated the residence.
However, the transition wasn't entirely smooth. First Lady Sarah Polk wasn't a fan of the harsh gaslight and preferred the softer glow of candles. On the very first night the gas lights were used in the state rooms, a gas supply outage plunged the space into darkness! Thankfully, Mrs. Polk's foresight in keeping candles in the Blue Room chandelier saved the evening.
Despite this initial hiccup, gas lighting gradually became the primary source of artificial light in the White House until the arrival of electricity in 1891. By the Civil War era, it was the dominant lighting method, adding a new level of illumination and grandeur to the president's residence.
The first electric lighting system employing overhead wires was built by Thomas Edison. It begun service at Roselle, New Jersey in 1883.
Modern neon lighting was first demonstrated by Georges Claude at the Paris Motor Show on December 3, 1910. His neon lamp worked by means of "glow discharge" tubes that generate light when an electric current is passed through the rarefied gas within the tube. With the introduction of inner fluorescent coatings, the fluorescent light was developed and began to replace the incandescent lamp in industrial and some home-lighting uses.
A motorist in San Francisco was nearly killed on August 3, 2015 when a corroded lamp post suddenly toppled and crashed onto his car within inches of his head. The corrosion was caused by dogs and people urinating on it.
Moonlight towers are lighting structures designed to illuminate areas of a city at night. Austin, Texas is the only city in the world known still to have light towers.
North Korea appears pitch black at night based on NASA satellite images. Entire streets shut down, and people go to bed early with nothing else to do in the darkness. South Korea use 10,162 kilowatt hours per person a year compared to North Korea who only use 739.
The Lighthouse of Alexandria, built around 280 BC, was one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Damaged by earthquakes in 956 and 1303 it was abandoned after another earthquake in 1323.
The world's oldest existing lighthouse is Spain's Tower of Hercules, erected in the first century and still operational.
The Eddystone Rocks were a major shipwreck hazard for mariners sailing through the English Channel. The first lighthouse built there was an octagonal wooden structure, anchored by twelve iron stanchions secured in the rock, and was built by Henry Winstanley in the late 17th century. The light was lit on November 14, 1698. Winstanley's lighthouse was the first tower in the world to have been fully exposed to the open sea.
While supervising work on the Eddystone Rocks in 1697, Winstanley was seized by a French privateer during the War of the League of Augsburg/War of the Grand Alliance. When Louis XIV learned Winstanley was building a lighthouse to protect all shipping, he ordered his release with the sentiment that France was at war with England, not with all humanity.
Winstanley returned to complete and later enlarge the lighthouse, and he was inside it on December 8, 1703 when the Great Storm destroyed the structure, killing him and the keepers.
Winstanley's lighthouse, as modified in 1699
The cost of construction and five years' maintenance of the first Eddystone Lighthouse totaled £7,814 7s.6d, during which time dues totaling £4,721 19s.3d had been collected at one penny per ton from passing vessels.
A second Eddystone Lighthouse was completed in 1709. This proved more durable, surviving nearly fifty years. However, on the night of December 2, 1755, the top of the lantern caught fire, probably through a spark from one of the candles used to illuminate the light and the tower burnt down.
Drawing of the second Eddystone Lighthouse,
The civil engineer, John Smeaton, rebuilt the lighthouse in 1759. His tower represented a major step forward in the design of lighthouses and remained in use until 1877.
The first lighthouse in America was authorized for construction by the Massachusetts legislature at Little Brewster Island, to mark the entrance to Boston, Massachusetts, harbor on July 23, 1715. The Boston Light was ready for use by mid-September of the following year. It has guided ships since then.
A tonnage tax of 1 penny per ton charged to vessels moving in or out of Boston Harbor, paid for maintaining the light.
1729 illustration of Boston Light
The first keeper of Boston Light was George Worthylake. He was paid £50 a year to keep the beacon lit from sundown to sunrise. Worthylake drowned, along with his wife and daughter, when returning to the island in 1718.
The stone structure weathered 60 years of lightning strikes and gale-force winds before the British Army blew up the tower and completely destroyed it during the American Revolutionary War.
The current lighthouse dates from 1783, is the second oldest working lighthouse in the United States (after Sandy Hook Lighthouse in New Jersey)
The number of men working in a lighthouse in the UK was increased from 2 to 3 following a gruesome incident in 1801 at the Smalls Lighthouse 20 miles (32 km) west of Marloes Peninsula in Pembrokeshire, Wales. One half of a duo, Thomas Griffith, died in a freak accident, and the other, Thomas Howell, placed him outside in a makeshift coffin. Stiff winds blew the box apart and Howell was driven mad by the wind causing his dead colleague's arm appear to be beckoning him.
The Bell Rock lighthouse off the east coast of Scotland is reputedly the oldest offshore lighthouse in the world. So expertly was it built that no structural changes have been made since it was built in 1811.
A lighthouse 346 ft above sea level was built in 1831 by Robert Stevenson, the grandfather of Treasure islandauthor Robert Louis Stevenson, on Dunnet Head, Caithness, the most northerly point on British mainland.
Smeaton's Eddystone Lighthouse
A female heroine was created on September 7, 1838, when lighthouse keeper’s daughter Grace Darling rowed out to sea and saved nine people from a shipwreck on the Farne Islands, off the coast of Northumberland, NE England.
The current Cape Lookout, North Carolina, lighthouse was lit for the first time on November 1, 1859. The lighthouse was built with a double wall structure, which made it much stronger than previous lighthouses. It was also equipped with a first-order Fresnel lens, which was the most powerful type of lens available at the time. The lens could be seen for about 19 miles (31 km) in good weather.
The Cape Lookout lighthouse played an important role in guiding ships safely along the Outer Banks, a treacherous stretch of coastline known for its shoals and storms.
The keeper of the Christiana Light was 105 when he died in 1862, the oldest known lighthouse keeper in United States history.
In 1881 an ice floe forced the Sharp's Island Lighthouse off its foundations, after which it floated nearly five miles down the Chesapeake—with its keepers still inside—until it ran aground, allowing the men to escape unharmed.
During the 1883 Krakatoa eruptions and resulting tsunamis, a Javanese lighthouse keeper refused to leave his post, survived after the lighthouse collapsed, lost his wife and child, and built a makeshift light just a few hours afterward so that ships wouldn't run aground.
On October 22, 1707, a British fleet, under the command of Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell, was returning from a successful campaign in the Mediterranean during the War of Spanish Succession. Due to navigational errors and poor weather conditions, four Royal Navy ships, including Shovell's flagship, the HMS Association, ran aground on the rocks of the Scilly Isles off the southwestern coast of England.
The disaster resulted in the loss of all four ships and more than 1,500 sailors, including Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovell. The Bishop Rock Lighthouse, which might have averted the disaster, was finally completed in 1858 and was first lit on September 1, that year.
18th-century engraving of the disaster
Bishop Rock is the world’s smallest island with a building on it. Since 1976 it has even had a helipad at the top of the lighthouse.
Bishop Rock Lighthouse (2005) By Richard Knights, CC BY-SA 2.0, $3
From 1886 to 1902 the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor was officially a lighthouse. An electric light in its torch was visible for 24 miles.
On December 26, 1900 three lighthouse keepers mysteriously disappeared from the lighthouse on Eilian Mor, one of the Flannan Isles in the Outer Hebrides off the west coast of Scotland. Their logbook indicated they were frightened by a storm that hit on that day, but all other reports in the area stated the weather was clear on December 12th.
The mystery of the Flannan Isles Lighthouse disappearance remains one of the most intriguing maritime enigmas in history. It has inspired poems, books, and films, including the 2018 psychological thriller The Vanishing. A rogue wave is the most plausible explanation, but the lack of definitive evidence keeps the mystery alive.
Leasowe Lighthouse was built in 1763 by The Mersey Docks and Harbour Company to guide shipping safely to the Port of Liverpool and is the oldest lighthouse built from bricks in the United Kingdom. The lighthouse was closed in 1908 and its last keeper was a Mrs. Williams, the only known female lighthouse keeper of the period.
In 1912 Gustaf Dalen won a Nobel Prize for an invention making unmanned lighthouses possible. Despite being blinded in an accident in 1912 Dalen went on to invent the Aga cooker.
Finland's Lågskär island lighthouse was constructed in 1920. It introduced a rotating gas lighting device, which was the first of its kind in the world.
Lågskär Lighthouse and outbuildings (2009). By Islander - Own work, CC BY 3.0, $3
FUN LIGHTHOUSE FACTS
Russia has hundreds of nuclear powered lighthouses and beacons along the Northern Shipping Route.
