Today is the 212th anniversary of the birth of Abraham Lincoln, one of the greatest of American presidents. It should be noted that, in a great coincidence of history, it is also the 212th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, one of the greatest of scientists. One was born in a one-room, dirt-floored cabin in the semi-wilderness of central Kentucky, the other in a large, comfortable, servant-riddled house in Shropshire. Both rose to deserved immortality and today one rests in a great tomb in Springfield, Illinois, the other in Westminster Abbey.

All you really need to know about Abraham Lincoln is carved on the wall behind his statue in the Lincoln Memorial: “In this temple, as in the hearts of the people for whom he saved the Union, the memory of Abraham Lincoln is enshrined forever.”