Allan Pinkerton

Allan Pinkerton was a Scottish-American cooper, abolitionist, detective, and spy, best known for creating the Pinkerton National Detective Agency in the United States and his claim to have foiled a plot in 1861 to assassinate president-elect Abraham Lincoln. During the Civil War, he provided the Union Army – specifically General George B. McClellan of the Army of the Potomac – with military intelligence, including extremely inaccurate enemy troop strength numbers. After the war, his agents played a significant role as strikebreakers – in particular during the Great Railroad Strike of 1877 – a role that Pinkerton men would continue to play after the death of their founder.

25 August 1819

Born on the same birth day (25 August): Billy Ray Cyrus • Brad Drew • Charlie Sanders • Debbie Graham • Don DeFore • Doug Glanville • Francisco Fernández de la Cueva, 2nd Duke of Alburquerque • Frederick Chapman Robbins • György Enyedi (geographer) • James W. Gerard • John Leverett the Younger • Justin Upton • Louis Antoine de Saint-Just • Mel Ferrer • Michael Rennie • Philipp Moritz, Count of Hanau-Münzenberg • Ricardo Rodriguez (footballer) • Robert Horry • Rodney Ferguson • Sikander Bakht (cricketer) • Taslima Nasrin • Theresa Andrews • Tom Skerritt • Álvaro Mutis

Born in the same month (August 1819): Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, Duchess of Leuchtenberg • Herman Melville • Julius van Zuylen van Nijevelt • Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha • Sir George Stokes, 1st Baronet