Abraham Lincoln

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…

Did Americans keep "100%" of their earnings up until 1913? Not exactly: While the 16th Amendment, which taxed individual income, was ratified in 1913, some higher-earning Americans paid income taxes between 1862 and 1872 to pay off the cost of the Civil War to the U.S. government. A tax expert with whom Lead Stories spoke listed additional pre-1913 taxes that…

Is a post saying "Harriet Tubman is not a real person" accurate? No, that's not true: Multiple historians told Lead Stories this claim is false. One of them, the author of "Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom," wrote, "I can suggest that the notion that Harriet Tubman was not a real person, but a manufactured piece of fiction is categorically…

Is it against the law to sell alcohol in Bourbon County, Kentucky, which would make it "dry"? And is Christian County, Kentucky "wet"? No, that's only partly true: A map by the Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development titled, "Alcoholic Beverage Sales in Kentucky" shows that both Bourbon County and Christian County are "wet." This claim appeared in a Facebook post…

Did the U.S. Supreme Court find the Union -- the name for the United States led by then-President Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War -- guilty of "Constitutional Treason" in 1867? No, that's not true: There was never any such ruling by the Supreme Court in 1867, and the quotation by then-Chief Justice Salmon Chase used to justify the claim…

Is this a picture of Abraham Lincoln, who was a runaway slave who changed his identity to avoid being lynched? No, that's not true: The man pictured is an unidentified person who sat for a portrait by Augustus Washington, a daguerreotypist, who was a free man of color and who emigrated to Liberia in late 1853. This daguerreotype was transferred…