In Love With A. Lincoln

The link o' the day is this illustrated Maira Kalman tribute of Abe Lincoln, in which she realizes she's falling in love with him and wonders about his reaction to Frida Kahlo's self-portrait.

Punk Abe Lincoln

Another photo of Lincoln taken a couple months before he died, featuring a surprisingly contemporary hairstyle.

Abe looks downright rebellious in that photo. (via flickr blog)

Earliest Abe Lincoln photo?

The Kaplan Daguerreotype of Abraham Lincoln is purported to be the earliest known photo of the 16th President, taken in the early 1840s when he was in his early 30s. The young man in the photo doesn't bare an obvious resemblance to a photo taken of Lincoln a few years later but the forensic evidence is compelling.

Numerous accounts have revealed that Lincoln underwent a noticeable change in his physical appearance beginning in January 1841 as a result of a grave emotional crisis. This coincides with his reported failure to go through with his scheduled marriage to Mary Todd, leaving her literally waiting for him at the altar. (They were married the following year.) This emotional crisis, just one of a series of such episodes to plague him throughout his life, was the cause of Lincoln losing a considerable amount of weight.

Dreaming of Honest Abe

Someone keeps having dreams about Abraham Lincoln.

And then he hugs me and I think, 'Abe Lincoln hugged me. He smells like Old Spice.' I ask him who he supports in the election, and he smiles and says, "Believe it or not you're the first person who's asked me that this year; of course I support Barack. These so called Republicans remind me of Copperheads." And then he laughed sort of sad a deep ha ha ha laugh and I woke up.

The Copperheads were a group of Union Democrats who opposed the Civil War engineered by Lincoln's Republican administration. An anti-Lincoln pamphlet produced by the Copperheads -- titled Abraham Africanus I. His Secret Life as Revealed Under the Mesmeric Influence. Mysteries of the White House. -- brings to mind the ham-fisted attempt to characterize Barack Obama as a Muslim and terrorist.

Has Abe Lincoln been discovered in the

Has Abe Lincoln been discovered in the background of a pair of photographs taken right before the Gettysburg Address?

The new photos are enlarged details from much wider crowd shots; they were discovered by a Civil War hobbyist earlier this year in the vast trove of Library of Congress photographs digitized since 2000, and provided to USA Today. They show a figure believed to be Lincoln, white-gloved and in his trademark stovepipe hat, in a military procession.

The funny thing is, if you look at a similar photograph of Lincoln taken shortly after his speech, there are at least three men seated around him who are wearing stovepipe hats. The photographic evidence alone is not compelling. "Paging Errol Morris. Would Errol Morris please come to the information desk. Thank you."

Timelapse video of a map showing Civil

Timelapse video of a map showing Civil War battles and movements...four years of war in four minutes. The video was produced by Harvest Moon Studio for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum.

Historical rankings of US presidents. Honest Abe

Historical rankings of US presidents. Honest Abe is number one with a...well, he's just #1. George W. Bush comes in at a respectable 22nd, just behind Bill Clinton. (via fakeisthenewreal)