John Wilkes Booth was born on May 10, 1838 on a small farm known as Tudor Hall, located a few miles outside of Bel Air, Harford County, Maryland. His parents, Junius Booth and Mary Ann Holmes were British, and moved to the United States in 1821. John Wilkes was the ninth born of ...
John Wilkes Booth was an American theatrical actor from Maryland. He was a member of the prominent Booth theatrical family. Booth assassinated president Abraham Lincoln, and was killed shortly after. He was the first of four presidential assassins in United States history. In 1838, Booth was born...
John Wilkes Booth didn’t have the benefit of anonymity in anything he did, let alone committing a very public crime. Born near Bel Air, Maryland, on May 10, 1838, Booth was the son of popular stage actor Junius Brutus Booth. Naturally, John and his brother Edwin followed in their fathe...
And lastly, darker theory links the catch phrase to John Wilkes Booth. The actor-turned-assassin who killed President Lincoln wrote in his diary that he broke his leg while fleeing from the murder. Though this connection is considered a stretch in popular etymology, "breaking a leg" would ref...