Sunday, April 15, 2012

Hashing it over

On this day in 1865, Abraham Lincoln died from wounds he received at the hands of assassin John Wilkes Booth.

Assassin, word origin:

During the time of the Crusades the members of a certain secret Muslim sect engaged people to terrorize their Christian enemies by performing murders as a religious duty. These acts were carried out under the influence of hashish, and so the killers became known as hashshashin, meaning eaters or smokers of hashish.

Hashshashin evolved into the word assassin.

Booth was not a drug user, or a drunk like his father. But on his way to Ford's theater he was accosted by a drunk man who told him: "You'll never be half the actor your father was."

Booth supposedly replied: "There will be some fine acting tonight....when I leave the stage, I will be the most famous man in History."

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