DBWI: Abraham Lincoln wasn't killed by a bear?

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Of course there are conspiracy theorists, They question, could just one bear have mauled the Republican President that badly? The size of the claw marks are more Wolf-like. Also, if the bear did charge him from the front on the right, how does one explain the claw marks on his back and to the left?

Conspiracy theorists claim that the Bear was a patsy, and was blamed only because it was captured when it wandered into Ford's Theatre. How did Game and Wildlife officials react so quickly? Why was the Bear shot by an irate Hunter, before it could be taken to trial? Does anyone believe the irate hunter when he claims he killed the bear so that Mrs. Lincoln would not go crazy with grief?

Some theorists point to Well Known actor John Wilkes Booth. Who was known for his southern sympathies and coincidentally was training a pack of Wolves for an upcoming production he was going to star in. They say Booth had both the Means and the Motivation.

The theorists then point to the pair of tickets to this play Wilkes was to star in that were found in the possession of the irate hunter that killed the bear. The fact that the hunter was later mauled to death in his cell by a pack of rats does nothing to quell their suspicions.
 
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This thread shows a lot of ignorance regarding the Death of President Lincoln.

First of all the attack occurred on April 14, 1861. If it had happened in January he would be called President-Elect Lincoln, but as we know he was in fact President if only for a brief period. He was president for a mere 41 days; a feat only surpassed by William Henry Harrison.

Second, Lincoln was almost assuredly killed by a Mountain Lion. Black Bears almost never attack something as large as a horse. In 1960 (the centennial of Lincoln's death) when medical examiners exhumed his body they found that the bite marks on his skull and clavicle matched those of a very large cougar, not a bear.

Third, eyewitness testimony by Herndon and Robert Lincoln state that Mary Todd was is a hysterical state. People questioning her about the attack, including Seward, almost certainly planted the idea that it was a bear. Given the poor light and the speed of the attack it is likely Mrs. Lincoln never even saw the creature very clearly. Either way Mrs. Lincoln was never all that stable on the best of days, given what had just occurred it is likely she would have blamed the devil himself if someone had told her too. (In fact Robert's diary asserts that she was indeed blaming supernatural elements and called several spiritualists and even an exorcist to cleanse the area where the attack occurred. It was for the best to have her institutionalized in 1865.)

Finally, the myth of "Bear Bait Lincoln" has entered popular folklore and isn't going to change anytime soon. The South had a field day upon his death. I've seen old pamphlets saying things ranging from "Lincoln, the Unbearable President!" to "We can't Bear the Republicans!" It's sad that the event has spawned hundreds of bad puns that school kids have too learn in history class. Though truth be told Sam Clemens's "The Beastial Bear of St. George's County" and Ambrose Bierce's entry in his Devil's Dictionary regarding the event are both classics in American satire.

Benjamin

Of course there are conspiracy theorists, They question, could just one bear have mauled the Republican President that badly? The size of the claw marks are more Wolf-like. Also, if the bear did charge him from the front on the right, how does one explain the claw marks on his back and to the left?

Conspiracy theorists claim that the Bear was a patsy, and was blamed only because it was captured when it wandered into Ford's Theatre. How did Game and Wildlife officials react so quickly? Why was the Bear shot by an irate Hunter, before it could be taken to trial? Does anyone believe the irate hunter when he claims he killed the bear so that Mrs. Lincoln would not go crazy with grief?

Some theorists point to Well Known actor John Wilkes Booth. Who was known for his southern sympathies and coincidentally was training a pack of Wolves for an upcoming production he was going to star in. They say Booth had both the Means and the Motivation.

The theorists then point to the pair of tickets to this play Wilkes was to star in that were found in the possession of the irate hunter that killed the bear. The fact that the hunter was later mauled to death in his cell by a pack of rats does nothing to quell their suspicions.

Sorry to break it to you, but both of these theories are wrong. And btw, that first "investigation" in 1960 was headed by a guy named Jacob Wilhelms, who's probably best known for the "Giant Man" hoax in Washington state back in '49; he was later expelled from the National Association of Anthropology in 1962 after he tried to pass off a Native American woman found in that same state as a "Pre-Aryan"(whatever the hell that is!).

A real investigation on Lincoln's death the following year by the University of New Jersey(he died while vacationing in the Watchungs with his family, presumably for relief from the stress of the then imminent Civil War.) showed that bite marks on Honest Abe's body really did match that of a bear, and not a mountain lion as Wilhelms claimed, or that of a wolf as later theorists have speculated.
 
Of course there are conspiracy theorists, They question, could just one bear have mauled the Republican President that badly? The size of the claw marks are more Wolf-like. Also, if the bear did charge him from the front on the right, how does one explain the claw marks on his back and to the left?

Conspiracy theorists claim that the Bear was a patsy, and was blamed only because it was captured when it wandered into Ford's Theatre. How did Game and Wildlife officials react so quickly? Why was the Bear shot by an irate Hunter, before it could be taken to trial? Does anyone believe the irate hunter when he claims he killed the bear so that Mrs. Lincoln would not go crazy with grief?

Some theorists point to Well Known actor John Wilkes Booth. Who was known for his southern sympathies and coincidentally was training a pack of Wolves for an upcoming production he was going to star in. They say Booth had both the Means and the Motivation.

The theorists then point to the pair of tickets to this play Wilkes was to star in that were found in the possession of the irate hunter that killed the bear. The fact that the hunter was later mauled to death in his cell by a pack of rats does nothing to quell their suspicions.

And the rapid development of nuclear chemistry in Maryland and Virginia in the 1880s, which accompanied the sudden switch of the two states from a slave-owning cotton state to an antislavery industrial Mid-Atlantic state, are also a rallying point of theorists, who speculate that John Wilkes Booth and associates were also chemists in secret.

The pack of rats were thought to have been mutated into knockout rats by changes in the rat's deoxyribonucleic acid sequence caused by secret radioactivity experiments done by John Wilkes Booth and associates.

They also point to the fact that Sam Mudd, an associate of John Wilkes Booth, had an affair with the famous chemist Marie Curie's mother shortly after she moved to the United States, theorizing that John's work in secret might have gotten to Marie Curie through the affair, causing her to become a famous chemist.
 
And the rapid development of nuclear chemistry in Maryland and Virginia in the 1880s, which accompanied the sudden switch of the two states from a slave-owning cotton state to an antislavery industrial Mid-Atlantic state, are also a rallying point of theorists, who speculate that John Wilkes Booth and associates were also chemists in secret.

The pack of rats were thought to have been mutated into knockout rats by changes in the rat's deoxyribonucleic acid sequence caused by secret radioactivity experiments done by John Wilkes Booth and associates.

They also point to the fact that Sam Mudd, an associate of John Wilkes Booth, had an affair with the famous chemist Marie Curie's mother shortly after she moved to the United States, theorizing that John's work in secret might have gotten to Marie Curie through the affair, causing her to become a famous chemist.
That is by far the worst conspiracy theory I've ever heard. Genetic manipulation? In the 1860s? Absurd!
 
I'll believe that when pigs fly!

lol!

Scientists in Mexico Create First Flying Pig
By Wilhelm Eisenhauer and Francis Girald, Saxon Broadcasting Channel
Last updated 21:22 GMT, Friday, November 15, 2013


Can Pigs Fly?

Scientists Marco Fransisco and Miguel Franco seem to have said yes.

On February 15th, 2013, the two scientists, after spending years trying to modify a pig's gene in order for it to develop wings, have finally...

There are more articles on this creation on the ABS and CBC netsites, and I just heard it recently on the StarNews Radio 911AM/119.3 FM and MKDS 776AM
 
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OOC: In all seriousness, the genetic mutation theory might be one of the worst conspiracy theories out there. It has been proven that the amount of radiation exposed in the sort of experiments that John Wilkes Booth was speculated to have performed would have killed the mice before the genetic mutation can occur. The other theory would be genetic manipulation of the rats, which as of 1860s the technology for it weren't available. They were only developed in the late 1960s, over 100 years later.
 
lol!



There are more articles on this creation on the ABS and CBC netsites, and I just heard it recently on the StarNews Radio 911AM/119.3 FM and MKDS 776AM

OOC: The article doesn't seem plausible, if it was meant in a serious fashion, but we CAN work with this.....

IC: Oh, I see you've found "the Onion" again. They're one of the best satire sites around......The only notable flaw with this piece is that they used two real companies for this(the Saxon Broadcasting Company is, of course, a work of fiction, possibly poking fun at the real life British Broadcasting Company), and in a non-satirical manner: and most people in the States wouldn't know about ABS anyhow.....It was a Phillipine TV corporation that died out in 1978 when a Chinese conglomerate(off topic: amazingly enough, though, there were a couple of TV stations in this country that actually aired old ABS and other Phillipine programming for the immigrant communities: mainly, WTFA in Tampa and KDPB in San Jose, Calif., although the former went off the air in '92. Good news is for aficionados of this genre, though is that KDPB now airs this and other Hispanophone stuff nationwide now that it's part of the StarMedia cable network. :))
 
What effects would this have on the envirenment? Black Bears were hunted to extinction in the most of the United States within the 30 years following. They had to be reintroduced in the 1950s with Bears from Canada and Mexico.
 
What effects would this have on the envirenment? Black Bears were hunted to extinction in the most of the United States within the 30 years following. They had to be reintroduced in the 1950s with Bears from Canada and Mexico.
Well, that probably would have happened anyway. 19th century sport hunting, plus the general fear of bear attacks. While the hysteria following the Lincoln attack certianly contributed, it was by no means the only factor.
 
Well, that probably would have happened anyway. 19th century sport hunting, plus the general fear of bear attacks. While the hysteria following the Lincoln attack certianly contributed, it was by no means the only factor.

Indeed, the dreadful beasts from the far north and south of the border had been planning to eliminate our domestic ursine supply for a long time at that point. Almost gets one thinking...
 
Indeed, the dreadful beasts from the far north and south of the border had been planning to eliminate our domestic ursine supply for a long time at that point. Almost gets one thinking...

There was an East Canadian comedy show that spoofed that back in the '90s, btw. I taped that episode while staying in the Maritimes a few years ago and I think the station was MTCC in Miramichi, N.B. :D
 
Sorry TR

I suppose the Teddy Bear would never come about as it would be in bad taste for such a symbol to be associated with a US President
 
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