History is full of big moments and famous figures, but sometimes it's the strange little overlaps that really make you scratch your head. You know, those moments where events line up in ways that seem just too bizarre to be mere chance. From the eerie parallels between presidents Lincoln and Kennedy to Mark Twain practically predicting the exact year of his own death (tied to Halley's Comet, no less!), some historical connections are downright spooky. We've collected 21 fascinating instances where history served up coincidences so weird, they almost make you wonder if someone's pulling the strings behind the scenes.
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1720 there was the plague, 1820 had cholera, 1920 was the Spanish flu and in 2020 the Coronavirus outbreak start.
1970's The Jim twins. Two identical twins separated and adopted to different families at birth. Both were named James, married and divorced women named Linda, remarried women named Betty, and each had a dog named Toy. They even both named their sons James Allan. They reunited at age 39.
Violet Constance Jessop was an Irish-Argentine ocean liner stewardess and Voluntary Aid Detachment nurse in the early 20th century. Jessop is best known for having survived the sinking of both RMS Titanic in 1912 and her sister ship HMHS Britannic in 1916, as well as having been aboard the eldest of the three sister ships, RMS Olympic, when it collided with the British warship HMS Hawke in 1911.
14 years before the Titanic sank, in 1898, Morgan Robertson, a fantasy writer from the US, write about a ship sinking in a novella called Futility. The ship in the book was called the Titan, but that's not the end of the similarities. For example, like the real Titanic, the Titan was described as unsinkable. They also both had insufficient lifeboats and they both collided with icebergs in the North Atlantic.
Nuclear reactor accident at Three Mile Island happened 12 days after "China Syndrome" was released. "China Syndrome" was a movie about a nuclear meltdown.
It also happened on a Saturday: 1 day AFTER Terry Pratchett was hired by the British Equivalent of the US Atomic Energy Commission (He was hired in the PR department). Monday was a great day for him...
In 1726 Jonathan Swift mentioned Mars having 2 moons and their approximate orbital periods in Gulliver's Travels 151 years before they were discovered in 1877.
Samuel Clemens, better known by his pen name of Mark Twain, predicted his own passing. His prediction was based on the astronomical phenomenon that marked his birth - Halley's Comet in 1835. Halley's Comet is visible from Earth every 75 or 76 years. Twain was born shortly after the comet was visible in 1835. He made the above prediction in 1909. He was right: he passed away from a heart attack just as Halley's Comet was again visible on April 21, 1910.
According to the Internet Death Clock, I will die on Wednesday 24th August 2044. So I put a note in my calendar the week before that to get a haircut and have the suit cleaned.
Two of America's presidents Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy, share a multitude of barely believable coincidences. Both were shot and passed away on Friday, both passed away before a celebration (Kennedy was assassinated on the eve of Thanksgiving, Lincoln was killed right before Easter), and each one of them were accompanied by their wife and another couple. Also both had a friend called Billy Graham, both had four children, both had secretaries named after the other (Kennedy's secretary was called Mrs. Lincoln, while Lincoln's secretary was called John), and both of their successors were vice presidents called Johnson.
The Endurance ship was found at the bottom of the Weddell Sea 100 years to the day after Ernest Shackleton, the Endurance's captain, was buried (March 5, 1922 and March 5, 2022).
The most incredible survival tale in history, and one of history's greatest leaders. If you haven't read a detailed account of the Shackleton expedition before, find one of the several books on it at your nearest library.
112 fatal accidents were associated with the building of the Hoover Dam, but there's a strange coincidence between the first and last men to lose their lives during its construction. The first man to pass away was a surveyor called George Tierney, who drowned in the Colorado on December 20, 1922, while looking for an ideal place for the dam and the last man to pass away was Patrick Tierney, George's son, who also passed away on December 20 in 1935.
Oh, how tragic for their family members to lose father and son to the same project :(
Bobby Farrell singer in pop and Eurodisco group Boney M who had a song named 'Rasputin' about Grigori Rasputin, passed away in same city - St. Petersburg, Russia on 30th of December the same date and place that Grigori Rasputin passed away too.
He wasn't actually a singer, he was hired as a dancer - all the records were sung by someone else. There is footage of him singing live, and it's nothing like the original.
Theoretical physicist and cosmologist Stephen Hawking's passing occurred on fairly significant day which correlated with theoretical physicist Albert's Einstein’s 139th birthday, Galileo’s 300th passing-day and Pi day - March 14, with date read as 3.14.
Hawking would have written the date as 14/3, because he was English, not American.
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese marine engineer who survived both the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings. Even that at least 160 people are known to have been affected by both bombings, he is the only person to have been officially recognized by the government of Japan as surviving both explosions.
John Adams, the 2nd US President, and Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd US President, both died on July 4, 1826. That day was the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
John Adams last words were "Thomas Jefferson still survives", unaware that Jefferson had died hours earlier.
The Moldy Peaches released an album on September 11, 2001 with a song on it called NYC’s Like a Graveyard.
On June 20, 1940, Soviet archaeologists uncovered the tomb of Tamerlane in what is now Uzbekistan. Tamerlane, who saw himself as Genghis Khan's heir, was a Turco-Mongol conqueror and the founder of the Timurid Empire in Persia and Central Asia. A warning inscription on his tomb read "Whomsoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I." Clearly not superstitious, the Soviet archaeologists ignored the warning and opened the tomb anyway. 3 days later, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the largest military invasion of all time, upon the Soviet Union.
Germany invaded Russia in June 22 1941, not June 23 1940.
Presidents Abrahams Lincoln's son Robert Todd Lincoln was coincidentally either present or nearby when three presidential assassinations occurred.
Buzz Aldrin’s Apollo 11 astronaut and engineer mother’s maiden name was Marion Moon.
Writer Miguel de Cervantes and playwright and poet William Shakespeare both passed away on the same date (23rd April 1616).
23rd April is also credited as Shakespeare's birthday and St George's day - yet we, the English, don't celebrate it at all.
The founder of the Ferrari company, Enzo Ferrari, died on August 14, 1988. Just a month later, on October 15, Arsenal footballer Mesut Ozil was born. Take a look at their pictures side by side. Massive coincidence? Or proof of reincarnation?
That's because coincidences are just that: coincidental. And they are everywhere if you go looking for them. Mathematical probability guarantees it, especially when it comes to dates.
Load More Replies...That's because coincidences are just that: coincidental. And they are everywhere if you go looking for them. Mathematical probability guarantees it, especially when it comes to dates.
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