16. They Could Have Sent a Fax Warning of the Impending Assassination

Samurais feel like a relic of a bygone era that mostly live on in our imaginations, fax machines are a somewhat modern and common invention, and Abraham Lincoln feels like he belongs somewhere in between those two timelines. The funny truth of it, though, is they all existed simultaneously.

The first fax machine was invented in 1843 by Alexander Baine. The Samurai caste wasn’t abolished until the 1870s, which means both they and fax machines were around during Abraham Lincoln’s 1863 Gettysburg Address. Indeed, a Samurai could well have sent a fax to Abe Lincoln.