"On This Day In History" The Recording Script • Written and directed by Christopher Bahn • From episode 27 (1997 Edition) of the radiodrama Where Threads Come Loose • Originally broadcast on KUOM-AM. Cast • Lincoln: Tony Pagel • Stanton: Adam Pagel • Announcer: Christopher Bahn Author's Notes • A one-joke premise that I'd originally planned to do as a series of four or five bits (hey, it works for "Saturday Night Live"). I used it to fill out the end of Tony's show "Brownies and Milk." (Music: Something very stirring and martial that really gets one's blood sugar up) Announcer: And now, Where Threads Come Loose brings you... (cheesy echo effect) On This Day In History, a feature designed for the education and edification of the listening public. The year is 1863, during the height of the American Civil War. Brother fought brother, son fought father, and even people who had never met before were shooting at each other with cannons and rifles. The location for our story is the White House in Washington, D.C., home of one of the greatest presidents in American history, Abraham Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln abolished slavery by declaring the Emancipation Proclamation, kept the Union from being sundered in half by open war and secession, and was one of the first non-Amish men to look good with a beard but no mustache. For these accomplishments he looms large over the American landscape. Let's join Mr. Lincoln and his Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, and find out what they discussed which makes today... (cheesy echo effect) A Day In History.  (Music stops) Lincoln: Cough, cough, cough... Stanton! Stanton: Yes, Mr. president? Lincoln: Cough... How goes the—cough, cough—how goes the war? Stanton: Fine, Mr. President. No major battles have happened in a month or so. Lincoln: Excellent. How's the domestic front? Stanton: Everything's quiet, sir. No crises or tough decisions to be made at all.  Lincoln: (His cough really picks up, sputtering and hacking—but not gross, just a cough and a dry throat) Good, good. Cough, cough... Glad to hear it.  Stanton: That cough sounds pretty bad, sir. Lincoln: Oh, I'm fine. It's just something in my throat. Stanton: Perhaps you should have a glass of water, sir. Lincoln: Oh, yes. That's a good idea, Edwin. (drinks a couple of gulps) Aaaaah. Very refreshing. (Music cuts back in) Announcer: Yes, that's right, on this day in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln developed a nasty-sounding, yet harmless hacking cough, but after drinking a glass of water, was able to send it on its way. One can only imagine the state that today's history would have been in if this event had fallen out differently. (pause) Join us again when we travel back to A.D. 24 and watch as the Roman Emperor Augustus gets a sliver. All this and more on the next installment of... (Echo) On This Day In History!