- These stories might be hard to believe, but each of them is true.
Occasionally, something so incredibly unlikely happens in our lives that it’s hard to believe. Call it a coincidence, a twist of fate, or an act of god, the odds of certain events taking place are astronomically small.
Yet, those things still happen. We’ve all had our share of weird coincidences, but there are some historical ones that really blow your mind.
Here are 11 of the strangest coincidences from history. And yes, they’re all true.
1. Stephen Hawking’s Birth and Death
Dr. Stephen Hawking, despite being bound to a wheelchair due to his crippling ALS, was a genius of math and physics to the end. As such, the dates of his birth and death alike are strangely fitting.
Hawking’s birthday of January 8, 1942, fell on the 300th anniversary of astronomer Galileo Galilei’s death. The day Hawking died — March 14, 2018 — was the 139th anniversary of Albert Einstein’s birth.
He also died on 3/14, or Pi Day.
2. Mark Twain Predicted His Own Death
Mark Twain is one of the most celebrated (and controversial) authors in American history. He’s perhaps most famous for writing about the adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
Twain was born in 1835, a year when Halley’s comet soared across Earth’s skies. In 1909, Twain made a more or less serious prediction that he’d die the next year, when the comet was supposed to come for a visit again.
And what do you know — Twain dropped dead in 1910, a day after the comet’s passing.
3. The Other Lincoln and Booth
In 1863 (or possibly 1864), a man called Robert Todd Lincoln fell off a platform in Jersey City and onto the train tracks. An approaching train would’ve surely maimed or killed him if Edwin Booth hadn’t pulled him back up in the nick of time.
Do those last names sound familiar? That’s because Robert was President Abraham Lincoln’s oldest son, while Edwin was the brother of John Wilkes Booth.
Only a year or so later, the fates of the two families would entwine again, but with much more violent results.
4. Miss Unsinkable
Ocean liner stewardess Violet Jessop had quite a track record. She somehow managed to serve on three sunken passenger ships.
In 1911, she was aboard the RMS Olympic, which collided with a warship and sank. In 1912, she was on the Titanic, and you know how that ends. Then, in 1916, she was on the HMHS Britannic, which ran into a German mine.
Having survived each disaster, Jessop earned the nickname Miss Unsinkable. That said, if we saw her on board while embarking on a ship, we’d probably start saying our prayers.
5. The Hoover Dam Deaths
The Hoover Dam is one of the most ambitious construction projects in American history, but it didn’t come cheap. Officially, 112 workers died during the dam’s construction.
But it’s the first and last people to die during the construction that make it weird. The first was John Gregory Tierney, who got caught in a flood and drowned in 1921.
The last victim of the dam was Patrick Tierney, who slipped and fell to his death from an intake tower. He was John Gregory’s son.
6. The Delayed Murder
The year was 1914, and French soldier Henry Ziegland had somehow grievously offended his now ex-girlfriend. So much so that her brother decided Ziegland must die.
The brother shot at Ziegland, but the bullet only grazed his face before getting lodged in a tree on his property. However, the ex’s brother believed the deed was done and committed suicide.
Then, in 1920, Ziegland decided to get rid of the aforementioned tree by blowing it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the six-year-old bullet from the trunk — and straight into Ziegland’s head, killing him instantly.
7. The Late Church Choir
The West Side Baptist Church in Beatrice, Nebraska, always had choir practice at 7:20 p.m. On March 1, 1950, the practice began with a bang at 7:25 p.m. when a leaking gas line destroyed the church in a massive explosion and fire.
Miraculously, however, there were no victims — because everyone was late to choir practice that day. In total, the 15 people who were supposed to be there were all delayed, each for a different reason.
Considering this was a church, you can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a bit of divine intervention at play.
8. The Twin Connection
Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were identical twins who were separated at birth. They finally met each other at the age of 39, only to discover they had led practically identical lives.
To just scrape the surface, both brothers had received the same first name. They’d married a woman called Linda, divorced, and gotten remarried to a woman named Betty, with whom they’d gotten a dog called Toy.
They also worked as sheriffs, and took their vacation in the same Florida beach resort. They certainly had a lot to bond over at their meeting.
9. The Twin Tragedy
Not all unlikely stories about twins are happy, though. In 2002, two identical brothers in Finland met their ends in bizarre circumstances.
The 70-year-old brothers had both gone out bicycling independently, when they got hit by trucks and died. The accidents occurred within two hours, less than one mile from each other.
Yet, there was absolutely no connection between the accidents. It was simply one eerie coincidence.
10. The Double Atomic Blast Survivor
On August 6, 1945, Tsutomu Yamaguchi was on a business trip in Hiroshima when the Enola Gay dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Although he was slightly hurt, Yamaguchi survived the bomb blast and returned to his hometown.
He lived in Nagasaki. Three days after the events of Hiroshima, he survived the explosion of the second atomic bomb dropped on Japan.
Despite all the radiation he was exposed to, Yamaguchi lived to the age of 93. He passed away in 2010.
11. The Sandwich That Started WWI
In 1914, a group of political extremists tried to assassinate Austria-Hungary’s crown prince, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, with bombs. The assassination failed, and the group’s members dispersed.
Among them was a young man called Gavrilo Princip. Sullen after the terror attack’s failure, he decided to stop by a roadside cafe to eat a sandwich.
He could then hardly believe his eyes when he saw Franz Ferdinand’s car slowly driving down the street right in front of him after the Archduke’s driver took a wrong turn. Determined to carry out the assassination plot, Princip drew his pistol and shot Ferdinand dead.
Franz Ferdinand’s assassination is widely considered the event that started a chain reaction culminating in World War I. You can’t help but wonder what course history might’ve taken if Princip hadn’t ordered his sandwich.