DAILY DIRT: All of these years later, the JFK-Lincoln coincidences remain thought provoking

July 12, 2025 | By Steve Eighinger MRN Minister of Culture and Doctor of Love

Daily Dirt for Saturday, July 12, 2025

Hockey fans will enjoy — well, maybe — the fifth item in today’s second thought … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 1,340 of The Daily Dirt.

1. The Lincoln-Kennedy connections have always been fascinating to me.

Ever since the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, historians have marveled at — or been baffled by, take your pick — the coincidences and/or correlation to the death of Abraham Lincoln.

I’ve always been drawn to those two deaths, too. The death of Lincoln was always interesting because of the place his figure has always held in our nation’s history, and Kennedy’s death has always sparked extra interest because of all the questions that remain to this day.

But the overriding factor connecting the two former presidents are the similarities of their lives/deaths and how they mirrored one another in so many bizarre instances. Of the numerous parallels between the two figures, I’ve narrowed those down to my 12 favorites, each of which, I feel, is worth a conversation on its own merit.

Both were elected to congress in ’46: Lincoln was elected in 1846 from Illinois, and Kennedy was elected in 1946 from Massachusetts.
Both were elected to the presidency in ’60: Lincoln was elected in 1860, and Kennedy was elected in 1960.
Both were concerned with civil rights: Lincoln felt strongly that all slaves should be freed and issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which legally freed slaves within the Confederacy; Kennedy was concerned with racial equality and was the first to propose what would be the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Both were shot on a Friday: Lincoln was shot on Good Friday, April 14, 1865, and Kennedy was shot on Friday, Nov. 22, 1963.
Both were shot in the head.
Both of the presidents’ successors were named Johnson: Lincoln was succeeded by Andrew Johnson and Kennedy was succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson.
Both were succeeded by Southerners: Andrew Johnson was from Tennessee, and Lyndon B. Johnson was from Texas.
The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contains seven letters.
Both Lincoln and Kennedy were second children, and both had been boat captains.
Both successors were born in ’08: Andrew Johnson was born in 1808, and Lyndon B. Johnson was born in 1908.
Both assassins, John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald, are known by their three names, which have exactly 15 letters.
Booth and Oswald were killed before their trials and within the same month as the assassination.

2. Did you know (Part 423)

That about half the number of the bones in a human body are in the hands and feet.
That somewhere in the world, a jar of Nutella is sold every 2.5 seconds.
That ancient Egyptians put dead mice in their mouths help with toothaches.
That Beethoven may have been a musical genius, but he never learned how to multiply or divide.
That earliest hockey pucks were made of frozen cow poop.