10 things you may not know about Honest Abe

Today is the tall, bearded gentleman’s 200th birthday. Here are 10 things you might not have known about one of our greatest leaders:

•1. He was a lawyer, U.S. representative and eventually president. But did you know Lincoln was also an inventor? He received a patent in 1849 for a system he designed to adjust the buoyancy of steamboats. The device was soon proven impractical and never used. But he was the only president to hold a patent.

•2. The tall hat wasn’t just for aesthetic. Lincoln carried letters and notes in his stovepipe hat.

•3. He was the first president to be assassinated.

•4. Though he was considered amiable and an all-around jokester, Lincoln suffered from deep depression most of his life, as chronicled in the book, “Lincoln’s Melancholy.”

•5. He was our tallest president, at 6 feet, 4 inches.

•6. Lincoln has no living descendants. His great-grandson Robert Lincoln Beckwith died in 1984.

•7. In a bizarre story that would probably make a great movie, a gang of criminals attempted to steal Lincoln’s body and hold it for ransom. They planned to ask for $200,000 in gold and the release of an imprisoned counterfeiter. The grave robbers were close to succeeding. They broke into Lincoln’s tomb and were getting ready to move Lincoln’s coffin when several detectives showed up. A member of the gang was actually a Secret Service agent who had infiltrated the operation early on.

•8. Lincoln’s most common nickname is, of course, “Honest Abe,” but he was also known as the “Illinois Rail-Splitter” for the endless hours he spent chopping wood with an ax.

•9. Here’s something for the conspiracy nuts out there �” an eerie connection between Lincoln and President John F. Kennedy. Lincoln was elected in 1860; Kennedy in 1960. Their names each contain seven letters. Both were shot on a Friday. The names John Wilkes Booth and Lee Harvey Oswald each contain 15 letters.

•10. Lincoln was the first president to sport a beard and the only one to do so without a mustache.

(Facts from Encarta, InfoPlease.com and www.alincoln-library.com)