GREAT BEND, Kan. - When I wished a Facebook friend a "Happy Birthday" on February 1, I saw that both she and her physician husband shared the same birthday, February 1, 1980. What are the odds that two people with the exact same birthday - same year, same date - would get married?
This incident reminded me of a topic I find fascinating: coincidences. Everybody loves a good coincidence. Sometimes they have an epic feel. What are the odds that our second and third U.S. Presidents not only both died on the same day and same year, but that the date was our Nation's Birthday, July 4? Yes, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826.
Sometimes coincidences involve celebrities but seem to have a personal rather than an epic feel.
I doubt there are two famous people whom I admire more than John F. Kennedy and Christian author C.S. Lewis. The fact that they both died on November 22, 1963 (Aldous Huxley died that day, too, but that's another story) is poignant and strange to me.
And yes, Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born on the same year, same day. They recently shared a 200th birthday, February 12, 2009.
Are coincidences just a happy or sad turn of chance, or do they have some meaning? I suppose if you study anything enough, you find commonalities.
Setting aside the JFK-Lincoln "coincidences," and all the "Ripley's Believe or Not" coincidences -- which I would not be comfortable passing on without more verification -- there are times when coincidences simply seem astounding.
Abraham Lincoln's son, Robert Todd "Tad" Lincoln, was once saved from a serious locomotive accident because a man grabbed him and pulled him on board the train. The man who saved his life was Edwin Booth, the brother of John Wilkes Booth, the man who would eventually assassinate Tad's father.
In fact, Robert Todd "Tad" Lincoln was present when three different Presidents died from an assassins bullet -- his own father, yes. Although he declined his father's invitation to go to Ford's Theater that night, he was at his Dad's side when the President passed away the next day.
Tad Lincoln was an eyewitness to President Garfield's assassination on July 2, 1881, as he was serving as Garfield's Secretary of War at the time. And when President McKinley was assassinated on September 6, 2001, Tad Lincoln was nearby.
I suppose coincidences are not surprising when we consider how often events don't match up. It's rare to find a good coincidence. But it sure is interesting. History seems to follow some people around.
I am fascinated by coincidences, too, Marty, and do love hearing about or discovering them!
Also, in your next to last paragraph, unless you were segueing into Mary Todd Lincoln's fascination with paranormal, I think you meant Tad was nearby on September 6, 1901! :)
I once heard a mathematician say that though coincidences seem amazing, it would actually be more amazing if there were no coincidences. :)
You say coincidence, I say "God working anonymously."