Juan7009
on October 2, 2026
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In 1956, an elderly man sat before television cameras with a bandage over one eye. His secret pertained to a night that had occurred 91 years earlier.
His name was Samuel J. Seymour, and he was 95 years old. On February 9, he appeared on the CBS program "I've Got a Secret," where a panel of commentators had to discover what extraordinary event each guest was hiding.
Seymour claimed that, when he was five years old, he had been at Ford's Theatre in Washington on the night of April 14, 1865.
According to the account he made public in his old age, he had gone to see the comedy "Our American Cousin" accompanied by his godmother and nanny. From the balcony, he observed President Abraham Lincoln in his box.
Then a gunshot was heard.
Seymour remembered seeing Lincoln lean forward and, shortly afterward, a man leap from the presidential box onto the stage. It was John Wilkes Booth.
But the five-year-old boy didn't immediately grasp what had just happened. As the theater descended into chaos, his attention was drawn to the man who had fallen on stage. He worried he might be hurt.
Nine decades later, that childhood memory reached television.
Seymour had also suffered a fall down the stairs of his hotel a few days before the taping and had a severe bruise near his eye. The show's crew tried to persuade him not to participate, but he insisted on appearing.
The panelists began questioning him. Bill Cullen deduced that the secret was related to the Civil War and a political figure. Jayne Meadows eventually identified Lincoln and the incident Seymour claimed to have witnessed.
Host Garry Moore decided to award him the full $80 prize. Because Seymour smoked a pipe, he also received a tin of Prince Albert tobacco instead of the usual carton of cigarettes from the sponsor.
Samuel J. Seymour died on April 12, 1956, just 63 days after that television appearance.
The recording left a scene difficult to place in time: a man sat before a television camera claiming to have memories of the night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated.
Dimension: 350 x 458
File Size: 21.14 Kb
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