"Now He Belongs to the Ages---and the History Channel

Today, in honor of Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday, we present some lesser known facts about the ol' railsplitter:

-- He was the first man to say, "Take me as I am, warts and all!"

-- Contrary to popular belief, he was not born in a log cabin, but in Beth Israel Hospital in Kentucky. The confusion probably stemmed from his love of Log Cabin Maple Syrup on his pancakes.

-- For several years afterward, his mother's gynecologists crudely referred to her "Lincoln Tunnel".

-- It is a myth that, as a young man, he walked miles in the snow to return an overdue book to the library. Actually, he ran when the librarian with whom he was having a torrid affair, told him that her "friend" was overdue.

--Yes, in fact he did do his homework on the back of a shovel blade, as did many young pupils in those days. However, the irate teacher always found it very unwieldy and awkward to collect, grade and pass back 27 shovels to the students.

-- He once "kilt him a 'bahr' when he was only three"---oops, sorry, that was Davy Crockett.

-- Despite his legend as the Great Emancipator, Lincoln routinely referred to Afro-Americans as "coons", "jungle bunnies", "porch monkeys", "darkies" and "niggers". He would later prove to be an inspirational figure for an aspiring young disk jockey, Don Imus.

-- The Civil War turned out to be not nearly as "civil" as he had hoped.

-- Whenever he referred to his dingbat wife, he'd say, "Yunno, there's something about Mary."

-- When he was young lawyer in Illinois, he was known as the type we today call an "ambulance chaser". He once successfully represented a man who was suing his horse for damages when the beast kicked him in the head while shoeing him. That man would later find fame as Dizzy Gillespie.

-- He always carried a torch for his first love, Anne Rutledge, who died young. Interestingly, Sherman borrowed that torch to burn Atlanta.

-- He was chronically constipated, which he'd refer to by saying, "Well, I'm havin' troubles with the ol' Lincoln Logs again!"

-- He always felt guilty about the fact the he left the zip code off his Gettysburg Address.

-- His final words were, "Yunno, if I'm not mistaken, I explicitly asked for 6th row center seats!!", and, "Where the hell's Raymond Massey when you really need him??"

-- His descendants took some small consolation from the fact that he was not the first President to be killed by an actor. "Did you see Barry Bostwick as George Washington??! Phew!!"., they'd often say.