"What are the odds?" is the first reaction that we all end up with whenever we hear of something unusual that we never thought could happen. You either meet a friend in the same flight that you are traveling in, or a person with the same birth date as yours. But these are just trivial occurrences.
How would you react when you get to know that such occurrences have been a part of our history on a much higher level? Has the Universe always been planning each of our lives? Is someone looking upon us from the space above who is making us all connected through such coincidences?
Here are 50 such historic coincidences that will leave your mind blown or you may also feel the ground slipping from under your feet.
Exactly fourteen years before 1912, when the calamity of the sinking of Titanic occurred, the famous author Morgan Robertson wrote and published The Wreck of Titan: or Futility, a novel which had the same story-line about a sinking ship named 'Titan'. The Titan in the book sank in the exact same way as the Titanic sank in real life.
Stephen William Hawking produced many theories on time and its relativity. Maybe that would explain the chances of a lot happening on the same day. The birth and death of Hawking, the great physicist, added to the significance to the days that already were. His birthday, 8th January is also Galileo's death anniversary and his death day 14th March is Albert Einstein's birthday and the Pi-Day when the day reads as 3.14.
When the crew of the famous movie 'Wizard of Oz' was searching for the perfect costume that would suit the character of Professor Marvel, they came across an old and rugged jacket in a random thrift store. It was on the first day of the movie's shoot that they noticed a name that was stitched inside the pocket of the suit: 'L. Frank'. Who was it? The original author of the Oz Novels.
The list of coincidences between the lives of president Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy is endless. Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846, while Kennedy was elected in 1946. Lincoln was elected president in 1860 and Kennedy in 1960. Both were shot dead on a Friday and in the head. Both of their assassins were Southerners and their successors had the same name, Johnson. Need we say more?
Did you know that World War I was started because of a sandwich break? Yes, the start of the war was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand but the assassination was not a simple move by the assassins. The assassins' original attempt to kill Ferdinand had failed miserably and they had lost their chance when the bomb they had targeted for Ferdinand actually hit the car behind him and he ran away safely from the scene. The disappointed assassins' stopped at a cafe for a sandwich and Ferdinand's driver happened to take a wrong turn and drove the car past the same cafe. One assassin saw him and shot the archduke and his wife. That is what triggered the World War I.
The assassination of archduke Ferdinand was not the only eerie fact about the World War. Ferdinand's car seemed to have an extra feature in it, a sixth sense of being able to predict the future. The archduke's car's number plate read 'A III-118'. Wondering where was the prediction? The armistice for the war was signed on the 11th hour of the 11th of November, 1918. Look at the number plate again.
Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler were two of the strongest leaders ever known in the history of the world. But that is not the only thing common between the two. Hitler was born exactly 129 years after Bonaparte. Hitler rose to power 129 years after Napoleon's reign and invaded Russia 129 years after Napoleon did. And that's not all, Hitler was ultimately defeated 129 years after the defeat of Napoleon.
South African astronomer Daniel Stefanus du Toit gave a lecture in Johannesburg, Florida, at the age of 49. The theme of the lecture was 'Death can come at anytime'. And that turned out to be his last lecture. Right after finishing with the lecture when he went into his cabin, he choked to death on a peppermint at the spot.
King Umberto I of Italy would go to a specific restaurant for dinner at times. One day he had an uncanny experience when he learned that the owner of his favorite restaurant was not just born on the same day as him but also in the same town. Even the name of both of their wives was Margherita. But that is not the end. One day Umberto learned that the owner had been shot and killed, and what more? The King was also assassinated later in the afternoon on the same day.
The Mongolians built the largest empire in history but there was one area, Japan, which they failed to conquer. When in the 13th century the Mongolians tried to enter the territory of Japan, a typhoon broke out at the Japanese Port of Hakata. The Mongolians retreated at that time but they returned again in the summer only to be greeted by a typhoon again. That is when the Mongols decided they would never visit Japan again. The surprise being that typhoons never even occur in summer.
The great Mongol warlord, Tamerlane's tomb is engraved with two inscriptions that changed the history of the whole world. The first inscription reads, "When I rise from the dead, the world shall tremble" and the second one states, "Whomsoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I". Joseph Stalin opened the tomb and to everyone's amazement, two days later Hitler and Nazis invaded Russia without declaring a war.
Out of the 112 accidental deaths at the construction site of the Hoover Dam, the first one occurred on the 20th of December in 1921. In the midst of the construction, the site got caught in a flash flood and the first casualty to be reported was John Gregory Tierney. And when after 14 years the dam had almost reached its finishing, the last casualty was reported yet again on the 20th of December and the man was Patrick William Tierney, J.G. Tierney’s only son.
It is an everlasting disturbing effect on the mind when we see someone's death in front of our eyes. And worse if you see the president passing away in front of you. Robert Todd Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln's son, was present not only at the time of his father's death but was also an eye-witness to the assassination of President James A. Garfield. And that was not the last either. In 1901, when President William McKinley was fatally shot, Lincoln happened to be in the same place.
The bloodiest four years of America, the Civil War, broke out in 1861 with the First Battle of Bull Run which started from a 46-year-old grocer Wilmer McLean's farm in Manassas, Virginia. Scared for his life, McLean left Manassas and moved to Appomattox with his wife and children. He felt safe in his new home even when the whole nation was upside-down. But the safety was short-lived because the war came to a closure in 1865 at the Appomattox courthouse which was just steps away from McLean's house. The war started and ended in front of McLean's house.
The great writer Mark Twain was born on 30th November 1835, the same year when Halley's Comet passed by the Earth. It is said that the comet passes every 75 years by the earth. Twain wrote in his autobiography, “I came in with Halley's Comet in 1835. It is coming again next year, and I expect to go out with it. It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don't go out with Halley's Comet. The Almighty has said, no doubt: "Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together.” And indeed, he died of a heart attack on 21st April 1910.
Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth on April 14, 1865. Just one year before the assassination, John Wilkes' brother Edwin Booth (left) had saved the life of nobody else but Lincoln's own son Robert Todd (right) when he was just about to fall from onto the train tracks in Washington D.C.
One of the best works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, 1838, has a scene wherein the whole crew, after the accident of their ship, kills, cuts, and eats a cabin boy named Richard Parker. Around forty years later, cannibalism happened in real life when a large wave hit and destroyed the ship Mignonette. The victim? A boy named Richard Parker.
Violet Jessop who served as a stewardess at the British Red Cross was known all through her youth for being at the wrong place at the wrong time, and bringing bad luck with her, especially when she was to serve in ships. Violet was one person who was present during the shipwreck of RMS Titanic, HMHS Britannic, and even RMS Olympic. She survived all three shipwrecks.
The whole world was devastated and had goosebumps after the attack of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and Japan was ruined. Tsutomu Yamaguchi was one of the many people in Hiroshima to witness the explosion of the bomb when he went for a business trip on 6th August 1945. He survived the attack and returned to his home in Nagasaki and survived yet another atomic bomb explosion in Nagasaki this time. He died in 2010 and lived till the age of 93.
A video game Deus Ex, developed by Ian Storm and released on June 23rd, 2000, was pictured around the New York Skyline. The issue was that the game had forgotten to add the Twin Towers in the skyline and to cover the mistake, they claimed that the towers had been destroyed by a terrorist attack in the video game. Little did they know their claim would come true just about 1 year after their announcement on September 11, 2001.
In Nebraska, a small town of Beatrice, a church exploded on March 1 in 1950. That was not the only bad news. To add up to it, the explosion happened at 7:25 pm, exactly 5 minutes after the choir practice begins at 7:20 pm. You must be wondering what would have happened to the mass members after the explosion? All 15 members were running late because of their own individual reasons and the only loss was the loss of the church.
Enzo Ferrari, an Italian motor racing driver, entrepreneur, and the founder of Ferrari Grand Prix Motor Racing Team, died on 14th August 1988. Exactly two months later, Arsenal footballer Mesut Ozil was born on 15th October 1988. The co-incidence? The resemblance in their faces. Would you believe in reincarnation?
When one day in September 1955, actor James Dean was driving his brand-new Porsche 550 spyder, which was originally decided to be towed but James decided he would drive it himself, he met with an accident and died at the age of 24 only. After the incident, whosoever handled the car became a victim of some unusual event or the other. It crushed a mechanic's leg who tried to tow it, set the garage on fire wherein the car was being stored and killed the driver who had installed the engine of the car in his own car.
When one day the American novelist Anne Parrish was walking in a Paris Bookstore, she was so happy to have found a copy of Jack Frost and Other Stories, a book which was a favorite in her childhood. The surprise came in when she opened the book and found her name and childhood address written on the inner side of the cover of the book. She was spell-bound to realize that the book was her own and she had found it after so many years in a bookstore in Paris.
On 13th of February, 1746, a Frenchman named Jean Marie Dubarry was executed for committing the murder of his own father. Precisely a hundred years later, on 13th of February, 1846, another Frenchman with the exact same name, Jean Marie Dubarry was also hanged to death. Any guesses for the crime? Yes, for the murder of his father.
A coincidence seeps in when we see the Hollywood actress Anne Hathaway's husband, Adam Shulman having an uncanny resemblance to one of the greatest poets and playwrights, William Shakespeare. Why the obtuse connection? Shakespeare had a wife named Anne Hathaway and both of them were married when Shakespeare was only 18 and Ann was 26 years old.
The serial killer Jack the Ripper went on a hunt in or near white chapel district from 3rd April 1888 to 13th February 1891. On the night of 29th September in 1888, a woman named Catherine Eddowes was found lying in a drunk state on Aldgate High Street in London, at around 8:30 pm. She was released later that night at around 12:55 am, and she lied about her name to the police officials as Mary Kelly. Later that night the serial killer murdered Eddowes and went on to murder another woman on the same night. Who was that woman? A lady named Mary Kelly.
Many conspiracy theorists have nonchalantly alleged that Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, is actually immortal. The president has had not one but two look-a-likes in the same world and that fact is other-worldly. A photograph appeared taken in the year 1920 wherein a Russian soldier looks like it is Putin. And after that, another picture of yet another Russian soldier appeared in 1941 who also resembled Putin to a very great extent.
Anthony Hopkins, the British actor, went to London in search of the novel The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer, because his next movie was based on the book. He could not find an original copy of the book anywhere in London but found a copy of the book lying on a bench at Leicester Square. When he met George Feifer before the release of the film, Feifer told him he himself did not have a copy of the book because one of his friends had lost his copy full of annotations. Hopkins showed him the copy of the book he had. The surprise? It was Feifer's original book.
One of the Commonwealth War Grave Commission cemeteries housed the grave of the first soldier that was killed in the World War I. His name was John Henry Parr and was killed on 21st August 1921. The last soldier to be killed in the war was Private George Edwin Ellison, on November 11, 1918. The astonishing part is that both of their tombs stand facing each other, the first and the last, in the same cemetery ground.
The founder of Rome was the world-renowned legendary Romulus. The first emperor of the Roman Empire had adopted the name Augustus. The name of the emperor of the Western Roman Empire that the Germanic Barbarians deposed and ended the Roman Empire was none other than Romulus Augustus.
The second and third President and Founding Fathers, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson often switched between as friends and then rivals. Both of the founding fathers died on the same day, July 4th of 1826, on the 50th anniversary of American Independence. Not just this, James Monroe, the 5th president of America also died on the 4th of July of 1831.
The world knows about The Simpsons ability to predict the future. First, the show's prediction of the presidency of Donald Trump came true. Secondly, it predicted about Disney purchasing 20th century Fox which also proved to be right. The show even showed the invention of smartwatches in advance, when nobody must've even thought of it.
In Dover Straits, a ship sank in the year 1660 killing a number of people. The only survivor was a man named Hugh Williams. In 1767, yet another ship sank in the same Dover Straits, and the only survivor yet again was a Hugh Williams. In 1820, a ship capsized in the roaring waves of Thames. There was only one survivor. Need we state who? Once again, a man named Hugh Williams.
During World War I, the British navy converted a cruise ship into a war vessel and named it the RMS Carmania and to keep it hidden from the enemies eyes, they smartly disguised it as a German Passenger Liner, the SMS Cap Trafalgar. The plan proved to be successful when the Carmania attacked and destroyed a German Ship which was actually the SMS Cap Trafalgar and was disguised by the German navy like the British's RMS Carmania.
In 1858, an aged man named Robert Fallon was at the spot shot-dead in the midst of playing poker for the mere reason of cheating at the game. According to the rules of Poker, he was immediately replaced at the poker table by a young man who won really big at the game as soon as he started with it. Who was this young man? He was none other than Fallon's own son, but the two hadn't seen each other in decades.
Dutch cyclist Maarten De Jonge has escaped and fooled death not once but twice in his life in the same year of 2014. De Jonge was supposed to be on Malaysia Airline flight 370 which disappeared after it took off, and a second time he was supposed to be on Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 which was shot down over Ukraine. He happened to change flight both times in the hope of saving time and money. Little did he know he was saving his life as well.
When two separated at birth twins, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer reunited after 39 years of their lives in 1979, it was astonishing to find out how they had both been living the same kind of life even when they did not even know of the existence of each other. Both worked security jobs, had wives with the same name Betty, and gave their sons the same name, James Alan and James Allan.
From 1861 to 1878, a man named Henry Tragne of Marseille, France participated in five duels. Amazingly, he won the first four duels without even firing a single shot as all four men died of natural causes all of a sudden. In the fifth duel before anybody had the chance to fire their respective guns, it was no one else to have dropped dead but Tragne himself.
After his sister committed suicide, a brother decided upon taking revenge on Harry Ziegland, the person who had promised to be with his sister forever but broke her heart because of which she took her own life. The angry brother shot a gun at Ziegland and when he thought that Ziegland was dead, he shot himself with the same gun and died at the spot. But the bullet shot at Ziegland did not strike him and hit a tree instead. Three years later when Ziegland was working removing the tree through dynamite, the bullet came out flying and hit Ziegland finally.