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A Guy Who *Saw* Lincoln Get Shot Was on a TV Show in 1956 That Is Now on YouTube

The America of Lincoln and the Civil War can feel like distant history, but every now and then, through the appearance of what Jason Kottke has called a "human wormhole," we are confronted with the brevity of a century and a half.

The above video captures this phenomenon succinctly. Here is a man, elderly but still kicking, who witnessed the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Yet his setting -- the 1950s/1960s game show "I've Got a Secret" -- is completely recognizable as a modern media production. Sure, it's not in color, the hairstyles are a bit outdated, and a cigarette advertisement is prominently displayed, but those are subtle changes when compared with those this man saw in his lifetime.

Samuel J. Seymour.

A bit more at Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_J._Seymour

Interesting.

Samuel J. Seymour actually died the same year that he was on the TV show. 

Does this make you feel old?

In 50-60 years they will be talking about the last person to have seen it.

In 50-60 years there will likely be no one who has ever witnessed a human walk on another celestial body.

Given the "politician promises" about it (humanity should be already landed on Pluto by now, hearing some past bombasts, and already planning to go even beyond)... I fear we have more than a little reason to fear that the above quoted shall come to pass.

Problem is, when we (as humans) landed on the moon, there was a... an ideological reason to push us (or a part of us)... the cold war against "the enemies of all who lives", as they were called in the USA...

Nowadays there are other enemies, the old one having disappeared, and the new enemies are not so... inspired, shall we say, nor inspiring to believe that landing on Mars they'll be awed into submission, like it happened less than two months before I was born. Hence the higher ups lack motivation to fund anything that goes above their ability to see.

Sad as it is to admit it, I fear you are tragically right.