5 Strangest Coincidences In History

After President Abraham Lincoln's assassination on April 14, 1865, there was a 3-week funeral procession along the East Coast to honor his life. Almost a century later, author Stefan Lorant unearthed a photograph showing the cortège as it passed by Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt’s house. And right there, looking through the window, was a future President of the United States...

On April 25, 1865, President Lincoln's casket advanced through New York City in a somber procession. Thousands of people gathered in the streets and looked out their windows to pay their respects.

In the late 1940s, author Stefan Lorant was looking through photographs as part of research for a book on Lincoln when he noticed an uncanny coincidence captured in one of the photos.

Lorant identified one of the buildings as the house of Cornelius van Schaack Roosevelt, the grandfather of future President Theodore Roosevelt Jr.

Upon further examination, Lorant spotted two boys watching the funeral procession from the home’s second-story window.

Lorant then met with Roosevelt's wife, Edith, and asked about the curious image. The elderly woman confirmed his suspicions: the tiny heads peeking through the window were those of “Teddy” and his brother Elliott.

In fact, Edith herself was in the Roosevelt house at the time the photo was taken. She recalled that she joined the boys in the window as a little girl, but got scared by the black drapings and the somber event (QUOTE): “They didn’t like me crying. They took me and locked me in a back room.”

Almost four decades after the photo was taken, the young Roosevelt would become the 26th President of the United States. Roosevelt would call Lincoln (QUOTE): “My great hero. He meant more to me than any other of our public men.”