Anniversary of Lincoln's death: questions about conspiracy still alive

NEW YORK, April 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- Today is the 148th anniversary of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth President of the United States. To mark this historical tragedy, prize-winning investigative reporter Edward Jay Epstein, will appear live in an interactive video chat event powered by Shindig.com, with a global audience on Tuesday, April 16th at 5pm EDT / 2pm PDT. 

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The event this Tuesday begins a six-part series where Epstein will discuss unsolved crimes to true crime fans and conspiracy enthusiasts, each discussion highlighting topics of his recent book, The Annals of Unsolved Crime. Discussion topics include The Lincoln Assassination, The Mysteries of the Vatican, The Amanda Knox Ordeal, The Case of the Radioactive Corpse, Bringing Down DSK, and The Lindbergh Kidnapping.

As the world knows, President Lincoln was assassinated by actor John Wilkes Booth, but as Epstein will share with Tuesday's live viewing audience, Booth was not a lone assassin at work that night and his actions were in fact part of a larger planned conspiracy. A 1865 military commission indicted 8 people in a conspiracy plot to kill President Lincoln in effort to leave the U.S. government "entirely without a head."  Marking the 148th anniversary of the Lincoln assassination, Epstein will discuss the Military Commission's conspiracy charges and why history has preferred a simple narrative of the case by representing John Wilkes Booth as the sole assassin in the plot to kill President Lincoln.

The series will comprise of six weekly online chats that will be held on Tuesdays at 5pm EDT and will be powered by Shindig, an interactive platform for large scale video chat events. Using Shindig, attendees will be able to enjoy Epstein's live talk, engage with other guests in private video chats and interact with Epstein to ask face-to-face video chat questions.  The interactive discussion will be free, but is limited to the first 800 RSVPs to sign up at: www.mhpbooks.com/unsolvedcrime

Those who RSVP for a talk will receive a free downloadable "briefing" on the case being discussed, excerpted from Epstein's book. In this talk, Epstein will explain the evidence, the status of the case, and review his own conclusions.

About Shindig
NYC startup Shindig is a breakthrough platform for large scale video chat events. On Shindig, anyone with a webcam enabled computer can log in to attend a live presentation or talk. They can share the stage with the speaker and enjoy a personal face-to-face experience before the entire gathering, or mingle freely with other participants in private video chats. In short, Shindig offers the dynamics of physical events at internet scale.

Still in beta, the Shindig platform has been embraced by hundreds of prominent individuals and entities for "Video Chat Book Tours," recording artist "Meet and Greets," online classes and conferences, "Video Chat Nightclubs," Kickstarter pitches and other events, both free and paid.

Recent Shindig powered events include the TEDx Fourth Anniversary Celebration, The New Music Seminar Upfronts and video chat book tours from Guy Kawasaki, Michael Pollan, Hugh Howey, Dan Ariely, Carla Hall, AJ Jacobs, and Scott Sigler among others. Highlights of past Shindig video chat book events can be found here. To find out more about Shindig or to RSVP for upcoming events, visit www.shindig.com. To inquire about how to how to host your own Shindig event, contact [email protected]  

About The Annals of Unsolved Crime
Edward Jay Epstein's The Annals of Unsolved Crimes is product of more than 40 years of investigative work and an insightful guide to some of the most controversial and mysterious crimes of the last 200 years from one of America's most prolific and dogged investigative journalists. In a feature story on the book, USA Today calls Epstein "A grand figure of modern journalism" and noted "Show Epstein a juicy crime and he will show you how it has been subverted by unseen powers for their own agenda, by the inevitable incompetence of investigative authorities and by the media because it likes a simple story line."

About the author
Edward Jay Epstein is the author of fourteen books. He studied government at Cornell and Harvard and received a Ph.D from Harvard in 1973. His thesis on the search for political truth became a best-selling book, Inquest: The Warren Commission and the Establishment of Truth. His doctoral dissertation on television news was published as News From Nowhere. He is the recipient of numerous foundation grants and awards, including the prestigious Financial Times / Booz Allen & Hamilton Global Business Book Award for both best biography and best business book for Dossier: The Secret History of Armand Hammer. He has written for Vanity Fair, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal. He lives in New York City.

For more information, contact:
At Melville House: Ariel Bogle, 718.722.9204 or [email protected]
At Shindig: Jeri Rosenblum,  212 699 3655 or [email protected]

SOURCE Shindig