Two presidents in our history are quite similar, on accident maybe? We will never know. Lincoln and Kennedy were two people with very similar, tragic, and well known deaths.
Lincoln’s assassin, John Wilkes Booth, and Kennedy’s assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, were very similar; on purpose or not we will never truly know. Oswald never told anyone of his plan, no one knows what he was thinking or how according to plan his assassination went. While Oswald worked alone, though, Booth had many associates. His main mistake was leaving his clues; his hotel room was full of evidence. Oswald, however, covered his tracks well besides the fact that some people, who crowded on the street to see Kennedy, thought they saw his face in the window.
Booth may have wanted everyone to know it was he who murdered the president. He chose, as did Oswald, a very public place for the assassination. The theater where Lincoln and his wife, Mary, were a part of an audience, where Booth murdered the president then went up on stage and said, “Sic semper tyrannis!” (Ever thus to tyrants!). Oswald murdered Kennedy inches from his wife, Jackie who desperately tried to piece Kennedy’s head back together. Both Jackie and Mary were in such shock they didn’t know what to do.
The new president after Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, was notified that the president had been shot and that he was now the 17th president of the United States. Ironically Lyndon B. Johnson was the president after Kennedy. Andrew Johnson allowed Mary and her children to stay in the White House until they were ready to leave, just as Lyndon Johnson did for Jackie.
Lincoln and Kenedy were two different people with very similar, tragic, and well known deaths. This matters to our history because we must recognized the tragedy and loss that America suffered twice in history.