Abraham Lincoln could’ve sent a fax to a samurai

Abraham Lincoln, pondering what to put in his fax to the samurai (Photo by Library of Congress on Unsplash)

Today in ‘Bizarre Facts From the Timeline of Human History’ — Abraham Lincoln could have sent a fax to a Japanese samurai.

That’s right kids, the fax machine was invented in 1843, the samurai ceased to exist in 1867 and Lincoln died in 1865.

So it would’ve been tight, but it could have happened.

The most unbelievable element of that trio of statistics is almost certainly the fax one but it is true — Scottish inventor Alexander Bain patented an ‘electric printing telegraph’, although it was no until 1865 (the year of Lincoln’s death) that the first telefax service, between Paris and Lyon, was established.

The samurai existed for several centuries and were still just about going (just) when the fax was invented and were living a badass katana-swinging existence in the 1870s.

Therefore, the bizarre historical juxtaposition of Lincoln sending a samurai a fax is accurate.

Other great curiosities from the timeline of human history:

• Cleopatra (70–30BCE) existed closer to the launch of the first iPhone (2007AD) than she did to the construction of the Pyramids (2630–2610BCE).
• The last execution by guillotine in France took place after the release of the…