# Intriguing meetings of famous or historical figures you don't usually associate together **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 30, 2009, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077 "2009-09-30T05:04:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/61 "2009-10-02T04:43:18Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > This is the opposite of what you’re asking for, but I spent some time trying and failing to find evidence that philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche had met my favorite 19th century monarch, King Ludwig II of Bavaria (“Mad King Ludwig”). I’d be very curious to know what they thought of each other. Both men were close friends of composer Richard Wagner and both visited Wagner at his home in Switzerland on multiple occasions, but as far as I can tell never at the same time. Both Nietzsche and Ludwig were at the first Bayreuth opera festival, but Ludwig had become pretty reclusive by that time and did little or no socializing at the festival. > > Speaking of Wagner and Ludwig II, many Bavarians disliked the influence the composer had over their young king. Some even made jokes comparing Wagner to the notorious Lola Montez, mistress of Ludwig II’s grandfather, King Ludwig I. Prior to her relationship with Ludwig I, Montez had an affair with composer Franz Liszt. Since Liszt’s daughter Cosima later married Wagner, this means that Wagner’s father-in-law and Ludwig II’s grandfather had shared a mistress. When Ludwig was declared insane was he put in a mental hospital or just confined to one of his own residences? (I was wondering if there was any connection there.) ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/62 "2009-10-02T04:52:19Z")
Over and over in this thread I keep hearing Paul Harvey’s voice in my mind: “And now you know . . . the _rest_ of the story.” ---
**Author:** ![Koxinga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/4af34b/32.png) [@Koxinga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Koxinga)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/63 "2009-10-02T05:42:04Z")
> [@Mississippienne](#): > > Also, the phenomenon of tangled webs of celebrity love affairs is nothing new. One of the longer and more impressive ones I can find goes: > > Frederic Chopin, the famous composer and George Sand, the author > George Sand and Alfred de Musset, the poet > Alfred de Musset and Rachel Felix, the great actress > Rachel Felix and a whole lost of gentlemen, including Prince Louis Napoleon, Emile de Girardin, and Alexandre Walewski (Napoleon’s illegitimate son, to whom she bore a son). She also knew both Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas (\*pere \*and _fils_) but so far as I know she didn’t have affairs with them, although Dumas fils pursued her madly. All of them pikers compared to [Paris Hilton](http://www.cracked.com/article_16270_six-degrees-paris-hilton-global-reach-one-vagina.html), linked carnally albeit indirectly to John Holmes, Prince Charles, Adolf Hitler and Osama bin Laden. ---
**Author:** ![zagloba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/977dab/32.png) [@zagloba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zagloba)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/64 "2009-10-02T06:05:23Z")
> [@Yumblie](#): > > Albert Einstein met with the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben Gurion. Although Einstein is now mostly famous for his work in physics, he was also very politically active late in life, especially in regards to the state of Israel. He was even offered the position of prime minister, but declined. He was offered the position of [President, but declined](http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,817454,00.html). ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 6:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/65 "2009-10-02T06:34:09Z")
In 1887, five-year-old Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his sailor suit, visited the White House where he was introduced to President Grover Cleveland. President Cleveland patted young FDR on the head and said, “My little man, I am making a strange wish for you: It is that you will never be president of the United States.” ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/66 "2009-10-02T09:22:11Z")
hunter s thomson and richard milhouse nixon. wierder though is churchill, roosevelt, stalin and chiang kai-shek ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/67 "2009-10-02T11:24:09Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Why on Earth couldn’t she miss just once? And start the German-American War? Novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder went mountain climbing with boxer Gene Tunney. President Reagan’s Secretary of Education William Bennett went on a date with Janis Joplin in college. Ben Stein and Hillary Clinton were classmates in law school. Four U.S. presidents were in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963 (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Bush Sr.) ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/68 "2009-10-02T11:30:10Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > When Ludwig was declared insane was he put in a mental hospital or just confined to one of his own residences? Confined to his _schloss_. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/69 "2009-10-02T11:54:08Z")
> [@](#): > > Not a meeting per se, but I believe I’ve seen a photograph of Lincoln’s funeral procession, with a young Teddy Roosevelt observing (just a silhouette in a window, but someone apparently knew who it was). > Reply With Quote The photo’s in several places, including (IIRC) David McCulloch’s bio of the Teddy Roosevelt’s early years. We know which house belonged to the wealthy Roosevelt’s, and in a picture of Lincoln’s funeral procession through NYC you can make out dark blobs that are undoubtedly heads in the windows of that house. It’s conjectured that one was the young Teddy (who wasn’t yet seven), and it seems likely enough, but we can’t know for sure. ---
**Author:** ![SecondJudith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5ac83/32.png) [@SecondJudith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SecondJudith)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 12:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/70 "2009-10-02T12:20:03Z")
During what I presume is the same US tour **Sampiro** mentions in the OP, Oscar Wilde and Walt Whitman met and reportedly got on very well. And very naked. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/71 "2009-10-02T12:33:34Z")
William Bennett (conservative author) went on a date with Janis Joplin. ---
**Author:** ![Sigmagirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c89c15/32.png) [@Sigmagirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigmagirl)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/72 "2009-10-02T12:53:39Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Oh hellacool! (It’d be embarassing to admit how much I LOVE little out-of-the-way offbeat local history things like that [as in I’m leaving for Chattanooga tomorrow so that I can stand on the side of a mule massacre on its anniversary). I’ve always wished that some action figure company would make scaled figures of Barnum’s stars (Tom Thumb, Chang-Eng, Bates-Swan, etc.)- I’d be embarassed to admit how much I’d probably be willing to pay for them ;).) > > Re: the Dickens-Poe meeting- that must have been peculiar for the success disparity between them also. Poe was always famously a day late and a dollar short while Dickens was one of the first authors to get really rich from his writings (and he dressed it- wore jeweled rings and tailored silk clothes and the like). I wonder if he had an element of “ewww… workhouse flashback” with Poe. Now I will have to go sometime and take pictures for you. I don’t know . . . I think Poe always dressed very well. Not expensively, but stylishly. He definitely was a man of taste and would put himself together well. The ladies liked Mr. Poe. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/73 "2009-10-02T15:33:22Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > William Bennett (conservative author) went on a date with Janis Joplin. And Janis is right next to former Dallas Cowboys coach Jimmy Johnson in their high school yearbook. They were in the same graduating class in Port Arthur, Texas, though they ran in different circles and weren’t close friends. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/74 "2009-10-02T15:59:48Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > And start the German-American War? > > Novelist and playwright Thornton Wilder went mountain climbing with boxer Gene Tunney. President Reagan’s Secretary of Education William Bennett went on a date with Janis Joplin in college. Ben Stein and Hillary Clinton were classmates in law school. Four U.S. presidents were in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963 (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Bush Sr.) Among Hillary and Bill’s other classmates at Yale Law School was conservative film critic and radio talk show host Michael Medved. Back in their Yale days, Medved was much more liberal, and actually left law school to work for the McGovern campaign. Even though he NOW disagrees with the Clintons about almost everything, Medved still has warm feelings for Bill, and still ADORES Hillary, whom he regards as one of the most delightful people he ever knew. He used to fill in for Rush Limbaugh now and then, and I frequently heard him defending her to callers who regarded her as the devil incarnate. To callers who suggested that the Clintons’ marriage was merely one of convenience, Medved asserted that she was, in fact, head over heels in love with Bill from Day One. And to callers who suggested the Clintons were responsible for Vince Foster’s death, he said (correctly, I’m sure) that Bill Clinton COULDN’T kill anybody; that, if anything, his greatest flaw was that he wanted EVERYBODY to like him. To hear Medved tell it, Hillary Rodham was everybody’s best friend at Yale, a virtual den mother to all her classmates. ---
**Author:** ![Typo\_Knig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cdc98d/32.png) [@Typo\_Knig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Typo_Knig)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/75 "2009-10-02T16:33:39Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > … Four U.S. presidents were in Dallas, Texas on Nov. 22, 1963 (Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Bush Sr.) Bush, Sr probably lived near enough to Dallas that can understand how he got there. JFK and LBJ were there to visit. What the heck was Nixon doing in Dallas? ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/76 "2009-10-02T17:28:23Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > When Ludwig was declared insane was he put in a mental hospital or just confined to one of his own residences? (I was wondering if there was any connection there.) Ludwig II was taken into custody at the famous Neuschwanstein castle, and transported to a small castle on the shore of Lake Starnberg that had long been used as a sort of vacation home for the Bavarian royal family. As you may know, Ludwig II did not live long after being declared insane. He went for a walk with his psychiatrist the evening after he arrived at Lake Starnberg and never returned. Both men were found dead on the lake that night. Ludwig II’s death was ruled a suicide, but the circumstances were suspicious and the truth may never be known. Anyway, I think having royalty confined to a hospital with commoners was one of those things that Wasn’t Done. Ludwig II’s younger brother Otto was severely mentally ill (likely schizophrenic) and had himself been placed under confinement at Fürstenried Palace several years earlier and remained there until his own death in 1916. By the time Nietzsche had his own mental breakdown and was placed under psychiatric care, Ludwig II had already been dead for three years. ---
**Author:** ![MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c0e974/32.png) [@MPB\_in\_Salt\_Lake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MPB_in_Salt_Lake)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/77 "2009-10-02T17:57:59Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > hunter s thomson and richard milhouse nixon. > > wierder though is churchill, roosevelt, stalin and chiang kai-shek Hunter S Thompson and Richard Nixon shared a keen mutual interest in football, and were both very much focused on various issues of illegal drug abuse… ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/78 "2009-10-02T18:39:18Z")
Henry Ford and Thomas Edison were camping buddies. No, that’s not a euphemism. They used to go on camping trips together as adults. One long-term result of these was the invention of the charcoal briquette. ---
**Author:** ![ralph124c](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8797f3/32.png) [@ralph124c](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ralph124c)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/79 "2009-10-02T19:26:56Z")
Henry Ford and Anton Philips (fonder of the Philips giant of the Netherlands), were good friends. I used to have a picture showing the two of them in conversation. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 2009, 7:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077/80 "2009-10-02T19:53:55Z")
> [@Typo\_Knig](#): > > Bush, Sr probably lived near enough to Dallas that can understand how he got there. JFK and LBJ were there to visit. > > What the heck was Nixon doing in Dallas? Texas oilman George Bush and wife Barbara were on their way back to Houston after he spoke at a Rotary Club in Tyler, Texas. Former VP Richard Nixon had been in town as the guest of a national convention of Pepsi bottlers. His flight departed on the morning of Nov. 22, before the assassination. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/intriguing-meetings-of-famous-or-historical-figures-you-dont-usually-associate-together/512077.md?page=5)