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The Town That Got Away With Murder and Other Largely Forgotten Historic Events

Khalid Elhassan November 23, 2019 33 min

13. Abraham Lincoln Was Not a Vampire Hunter, But He Was Badass

Still from ‘Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter’. Fox Movies

With his craggy features, lanky frame, and stovepipe hat, Abraham Lincoln is perhaps America’s most recognizable historic president, well known for many things. As The Great Emancipator; as the president who successfully navigated the United States through the Civil War; and as the author of the Gettysburg Address, recited by kids on school stages to this day.

Less known is that in his youth, Lincoln was a lean, mean, wrestling machine, who performed feats of strength that became part of local legend and frontier lore. Contra Tim Burton’s Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, the 16^th president never hunted the undead, but he did kick ass and take names.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.