Happy 200th Birthday to Our First Bearded President!
Today is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the US, and in honor of this historic moment, here's a few tidbits of Lincoln lore:
- Abe was the first president to wear a beard, which he began growing after his election in 1860.
- Mr Lincoln was also the first president to be born outside the original 13 states.
- He was the only president to hold a patent: a "device to buoy vessels over shoals" which was never pursued commercially.
- President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, delivered at the dedication of the Soldier's National Cemetery, is one of the most quoted speeches in US history, yet the exact wording of the speech is disputed. There are five known manuscripts of the Gettysburg Address, and they all differ in some ways, and even contemporary newspaper reprints of the speech do not agree exactly.
- We have Abraham Lincoln to thank for setting the last Thursday in November as the day for Thanksgiving back in 1863.
- Lincoln was the first president to use his war powers to suspend civil liberties in the US with his suspension of the writ of habeas corpus during the Civil War.
In other Lincoln related news,
faculty and staff at Hampshire Elementary School have been growing out their beards in tribute to Honest Abe, and plan to conclude their hairy history lesson at an assembly on Feb. 23, when they will pose for photos, then shave the beards during the assembly.
Image: chadh at Flickr under Creative Commons License
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Posted by Derek Markham at February 12, 2009 6:00 AM
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