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): Anatoly Kartashov (cosmonaut) • Angela Park • Cameron Mathison • Carlo Acton • Doug Glanville • Eric Millegan • François de la Chaise • Jeff Tweedy • Jim Wallace, Baron Wallace of Tankerness • John Leverett the Younger • Joshua Lionel Cowen • Marvin Harrison • Monty Hall • Paul Herman Buck • Ruby Keeler • Shock G • Tom Skerritt

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