Abe and Che - Brothers In Arms?

Apparently, Cuban dictator Fidel Castro thinks that Abraham Lincoln and Che Guevara are brothers in arms. Castro wrote an article this past weekend in a Havana newspaper equating Lincoln and Guevara as freedom fighters.

Castro must be an admirer of Lincoln's. During a visit to Washington, D.C. after the Cuban revolution, he visited the Lincoln Memorial. He also supposedly keeps a bust of Lincoln on his desk in his office.

Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site - A Symbolic Cabin

Abraham Lincoln was born on February 12, 1809 on his parents' Sinking Spring Farm near Hodgenville, Kentucky. Today the farm is the location of the Abraham Lincoln Birthplace National Historic Site. The site features a neo-classical Memorial Shrine which houses a log cabin. For many years, the National Park Service, which operates the site, claimed that this cabin was the actual cabin in which Lincoln was born. Visitors to the site believed that this was the true birth cabin. I know I did when I visited as a young boy.

Of course, historians knew this to be incorrect. Indeed, it appears that this enshrined cabin wasn't even built until AFTER Lincoln was assassinated! People who visited the farm even prior to Lincoln's death reported that there was no trace of any cabin at the location, so how could this be his birth cabin?

For more information about the history of the "Lincoln cabin," a good source is the book "Lies Across America" by James W. Loewen. Chapter 33 goes into great detail about this cabin.

To its credit, today the National Park Service labels this a "symbolic cabin," representing the actual cabin. Still, the casual visitor to the National Historic Site must be made to understand clearly that the true cabin vanished long ago.

Here's a link to the official National Park Service website for the Lincoln Birthplace Historic Site:

http://www.nps.gov/abli/

And a link to the book "Lies Across America":

http://www.uvm.edu/~jloewen/liesacrossamerica.php

Welcome To The Abraham Lincoln Blog!

Welcome to the newest Abraham Lincoln blog. As the heading states, the purpose of this blog is to provide a repository of facts, anecdotes, and even trivia about the 16th president of the United States of America. If the reader of this blog comes away with a greater understanding or appreciation of Lincoln, then this blog has achieved its goal.

While I'm new to the world of blogging, I'm not new to the web. In "real life," I work as an information technology professional for a Fortune 500 company. That's my job. But my true passion in life is the study of Abraham Lincoln. Other kids asked for Dr. Seuss books. I asked for books about Lincoln. I've always been fascinated by his life, his political career, and even his assassination. I've devoted more than 40 years of my life to reading about Lincoln, traveling to the various Lincoln sites, and collecting what small amount of original Lincoln artifacts I can afford.

As I wrote in the "About Me" section of this blog, I am not a historian, professor, or author. I'm simply one of the thousands of people who continue to seek a better understanding of the life and times of Abraham Lincoln. Thanks for dropping by!