People Just Realizing the Mind-Blowing Link Between Biden's Age and Lincoln

People on social media are reeling after a little-known fact about Abraham Lincoln and Joe Biden's presidency came to light.

Lincoln, the 16th president, has proved to be something of a cultural touchstone for both Biden and his predecessor, Donald Trump. That's not necessarily surprising given his enduring popularity. In 2021, a YouGovAmerica poll had Lincoln ranked as the most popular U.S. president of all time. Eight out of 10 Americans had a favorable view of him.

In 2018, Trump made headlines after claiming that a poll had been released showing he would beat Lincoln in terms of popularity. But Lincoln died 10 years before the invention of the telephone, which was used by those conducting the poll. Lincoln also served as commander in chief around 80 years before job approval polls became part and parcel of a president's life.

In 2022, Trump proceeded to double down on those claims, suggesting he would easily come out on top in a presidential race against a hypothetical combined ticket of Lincoln and George Washington.

Biden, in the meantime, appeared to invoke Lincoln during his inaugural address in 2021, in which he asked people to come together and end the "uncivil war."

Now, Biden's name is being mentioned in the same breath as Lincoln's for altogether more surprising reasons. In a video posted to TikTok under the name paunchypeach, an American woman addressed a comment from another TikToker who claimed that Biden was born closer to Lincoln's presidency than his own.

In the video, which has been viewed 2.9 million times, the TikTok user tries to ascertain whether this was, in fact, true.

After crunching the numbers, paunchypeach revealed, to her obvious surprise, that the claim was correct. Biden was born closer to Lincoln's presidency than his own.

Lincoln's presidency ended with his death from assassination on April 15, 1865. Biden was born on November 20, 1942, and inaugurated on January 20, 2021. The gap between Lincoln's death and Biden's birth is roughly 77.6 years, paunchypeach calculates in the video. The time between Biden's birth and being sworn in as president is 78.2 years.

Paunchypeach was stunned by the revelation, letting out a "What the f***" after doing the math. Newsweek has contacted her for comment on TikTok and email.

She wasn't alone in expressing shock. Commenting on the video, one TikTok user said: "Chocolate chip cookies are 4 years older than Joe Biden." That fact is correct: Chocolate chip cookies were invented in 1938 by Ruth Wakefield, who ran the famous Toll House restaurant in Whitman, Massachusetts.

Another user wrote: "The insane part to me is that in that time there were 30 presidents between the 2. Lincoln was no. 16. Puts into perspective how young the US actually is."

A fellow TikToker claimed: "On Joe Biden's first day in the Senate (Jan. 3, 1973) he served along side four Senators that were born in the 1800's."

Some saw the statistic as further proof of the need for an age limit on presidential candidates. One commenter wants to set up a "petition for presidential candidates to not be retirement age," while another said the video was "proof enough that he has no business with that job."

A third, meanwhile, suggested: "If we had age limits, we could've avoided Trump AND Biden and just had some boring president in their 40's that we didn't have to fight about."