How time telescopes in the mind. We parcel out history into separate compartments—the Wild West in one drawer, the civil rights movement in another, and Victorian royalty in a third—forgetting that the timelines of some of the world’s most famous figures actually crossed paths. Look at the dates, and you’ll realize that people from completely different eras walked the earth at the exact same moment. Here are twenty pairings that sound like historical fiction but are absolute fact.
#1: Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin
One man in a stovepipe hat saved the American Union; the other, by studying finches on isolated islands, changed science forever. Both historical giants were born on the same day: February 12, 1809. While Lincoln was raised in a rugged log cabin in Kentucky, Darwin enjoyed a comfortable childhood in England.
