Abraham Lincoln

We agree with some very prominent people. Here's our proposal... Fact Checking Day on April 2, 2026 marks almost a year since Lead Stories published our last fact check as part of Meta's Third-Party Fact Checking Partnership. Since that day we've published over 1500 fact checks on our U.S. website on topics ranging from fake Epstein Files emails mentioning Elon…

Is Donald Trump being added to the sculptures of the four presidents at Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota as of April 1, 2026? No, that's not true: That was an April Fool's Day joke. The article that started the rumor was written under the pen name Olaf Priol -- an anagram of April Fool. The story appeared in…

Does a photo show damage to the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier? No, that's not true: There is no evidence that the American ship was damaged during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. The image actually shows repair crews in 1967 working to fix the damaged deck of the USS Forrestal after a deadly fire in the Gulf…

Does a viral clip prove that Iran sank the American aircraft carrier "Abraham Lincoln" involved in the military operation in the region? No, that's not true: The U.S. military denied the rumors twice. No credible media organizations reported the purported news and there were no higher quality versions of the clip or different angles available. The claim appeared in a…

Does a video show the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln burning in the Red Sea after being hit by Iranian missiles in 2026? No, that's not true: The video appears to have been generated by the Arma 3 video game. It first appeared online on June 23, 2025, in a post making a similar false claim during the 12-day war…

Did Antifa hang a Jeffrey Epstein banner next to Donald Trump's banner on the Department of Agriculture building in Washington? No, that's not true: Epstein's image was added with digital manipulation of a real photo of the front of the Agriculture Department headquarters next to the National Mall. The account that first shared the image said in another post that…

Was American racism engraved in its coins, with Abraham Lincoln's penny being copper because he freed the slaves and the other coins showing presidents facing the opposite direction as Lincoln, as a protest against him? No, that's not true: Lincoln was the first American president to be put on a coin in the country's history. The penny had previously been…

Did Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the U.S., advise the public on how to predict the future by suggesting that they should create it, instead? No, that's not true: The quote is not authentic, the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library confirmed to Lead Stories. The claim reappeared in a post published on Facebook on March 9, 2023. Its caption said:…

Did the driver for John F. Kennedy, Secret Service Agent William Greer, turn around and shoot the former president when JFK was assassinated in Dallas in November 1963? No, that's not true: A video posted on social media that makes this claim provides no supporting evidence beyond its grainy images. There also is no proof elsewhere that Greer played a…

Were there eight presidents of the United States before George Washington and did several Black presidents serve before Barack Obama was elected in 2008? No, that's not true: Washington was the first elected American president. There is a lack of historical evidence; plus, examples of genealogical research and, more recently, DNA testing that show no president prior to Obama was…