Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy

Why is the number 'seven' significant for Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy?

Much has been written already about this 'magical' number, and whilst we try to be tolerant about most things on this site, we remain sceptical about numerology and the suggestion of any supernatural properties of the number seven.


Lincoln

Kennedy

Nevertheless, to some people there is a mystical connection which caused the untimely demise of Presidents Lincoln and Kennedy. We believe there is no connection, but list some of the evidence below so you can make your own judgement.

Of all the presidents since the founding of the US, four have been assassinated and attempts made on seven others. That means a president has about a one-in-four chance of being shot. Surely only a madman would take on such a job.

We'll leave you to extrapolate that thought!

Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy are both featured on US coins. There was exactly 100 years between the two men being elected to the House of Representatives, failure of their vice presidential nominations, holding their Republican conventions in Chicago, their elections as presidents, the birth years of their predecessors, and the birth years of their alleged assassins.

All those events were uncannily mirrored in Kennedy's life exactly 100 years after Lincoln.

But what about seven? Here are seven facts:

  1. Lincoln's facial scar was caused when fighting off a gang of seven thieves. He won the race for Congress in the Illinois Seventh District. When he was elected president in 1860, seven slave states left the Union to form the Confederate States of America.
  2. Kennedy, a seventh generation American, entered and won seven presidential primaries. In 1960, an attempt to explode the president's car with seven sticks of dynamite was aborted. In 1963, the book depository warehouse where his alleged assassin waited, had seven floors. It was reported that the fatal bullet bounced around Kennedy's car and caused seven wounds. The funeral cortege consisted of seven limousines. The Warren Commission that investigated Kennedy's assassination consisted of seven men.
  3. President Lincoln was shot in the back of the head on a Friday by John Wilkes Booth, a Southerner, who was known by his three names. He ran from the theatre, was caught in a warehouse and was assassinated before his trial. Lincoln died next day soon after seven a.m.
  4. President Kennedy was shot in the back of the head on a Friday (in a Lincoln car) by Lee Harvey Oswald, a Southerner, who was known by his three names. He ran from a warehouse, was caught in a theatre and was assassinated before his trial. TV broadcast of the funeral started soon after seven a.m.
  5. In 1865, four people were hanged after being convicted of conspiring to assassinate Lincoln. One of these was Mary Surratt - the first woman to be executed by the United States. They were hanged on the seventh day of the seventh month.
  6. President Lincoln's secretary was named Kennedy. President Kennedy's secretary was named Lincoln. Both presidents were succeeded by Southerners named Johnson. The name Lincoln has seven letters; the name Kennedy has seven letters; the name Johnson has seven letters. Lincoln's predecessor, Stephen, has seven letters; Kennedy's predecessor, Richard, has seven letters; Lincoln's assassination conspirator, Surratt, has seven letters.
  7. ....and Surratt, Lincoln, Kennedy, the two Johnsons, Stephen and Richard, their husbands, wives and parents, were all, every one of them, once seven years old!

It took us about seven minutes to assemble this page of nonsense. With a bit more time to waste, we could easily write a similar 'proof' that the significant number for these two presidents is eight, showing that there is nothing unusual about the number seven.

And anyway, why should there be?

He who knows nothing, knows nothing.
But he who knows he knows nothing, knows something.

Or something like that.