Ill-Fate

It is an everlasting disturbing effect on the mind when we see someone’s death in front of our eyes. And worse if you see the president passing away in front of you. Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son, was present not only at the time of his father’s death but was also an eye-witness to the assassination of President James A. Garfield. And that was not the last either. In 1901, when President William McKinley was fatally shot, Lincoln happened to be in the same place. 

The Civil War

The bloodiest four years of America, the Civil War, broke out in 1861 with the First Battle of Bull Run which started from a 46-year-old grocer Wilmer McLean’s farm in Manassas, Virginia. Scared for his life, McLean left Manassas and moved to Appomattox with his wife and children. He felt safe in his new home even when the whole nation was upside-down. But the safety was short-lived because the war came to a closure in 1865 at the Appomattox courthouse which was just steps away from McLean’s house. The war started and ended in front of McLean’s house.

Mark Twain

The great writer Mark Twain was born on 30th November 1835, the same year when Halley’s Comet passed by the Earth. It is said that the comet passes every 75 years by the earth. Twain wrote in his autobiography, “I came in with Halley’s Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: “Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” And indeed, he died of a heart attack on 21st April 1910. 

Saver And Murderer

Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. Just one year before the assassination, John Wilkes’ brother Edwin Booth (left) had saved the life of nobody else but Lincoln’s own son Robert Todd (right) when he was just about to fall from onto the train tracks in Washington D.C.

Juxtaposition

One of the best works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, 1838, has a scene wherein the whole crew, after the accident of their ship, kills, cuts, and eats a cabin boy named Richard Parker. Around forty years later, cannibalism happened in real life when a large wave hit and destroyed the ship Mignonette. The victim? A boy named Richard Parker.

The Unsinkable Woman

Violet Jessop who served as a stewardess at the British Red Cross was known all through her youth for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and bringing bad luck with her, especially when she was to serve in ships. Violet was one person who was present during the shipwreck of RMS Titanic, HMHS Britannic, and even RMS Olympic. She survived all three shipwrecks.