June 9, 2017 2:09 pm
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We all experience coincidences pretty regularly, but some stand out more than others. In fact, certain historical coincidences don’t have a logical explanation — and had wide-ranging impacts. Enjoy these mindblowing historical coincidences.

1. Abraham Lincoln and JFK

Two of America’s most beloved presidents share a number of uncanny similarities: both were over six feet tall (even though both lived in eras when the average height for a man was well below that). Both were military men. Both suffered from genetic diseases. Finally, both met their ends on a Friday by the same means — an assassin’s bullet in the head while they were seated next to their wives.

2. Musical genius neighbors

Jimi Hendrix and George Handel both went down in history for being musical prodigies — albeit for two very different types of music. Had they not lived their lives two centuries apart, they would have been neighbors in London. Hendrix lived at 23 Brook Street while Handel was next door at 25 Brook Street.

3. Predicting the Titanic tragedy.

Fourteen years before the Titanic sunk in the icy waters of the North Atlantic, a novella written by Morgan Robertson predicted the ship’s demise. Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan featured a similarly-named ship — but the coincidences don’t stop there. Both the fictional Titan and the real-life Titanic were described as “unsinkable”, had a similar length, suffered from a shortage of lifeboats and struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic.

4. Hoover Dam victims

This massive engineering marvel claimed the lives of numerous workers during its lengthy construction, which stretched on for more than a decade. The first worker to die, J.G. Tierny, lost his life on December 20, 1922. The last worker to die was Tierny’s son, who perished thirteen years later, to the day, on December 20, 1935.

5. A video game predicts 9/11.

Futuristic shooter Deus Ex was released on PC in June of 2000. It took place in New York, which was accurately rendered except for a depiction of the World Trade Center towers. A game artist had forgotten to include the towers, so the game’s narrative explained this discrepancy by saying the towers had been destroyed in a terror attack.

6. Unlikely, unlucky moped brothers

A moped driver in Hamilton, Bermuda lost his life in 1974 when a taxi hit him. The next year, on the same street, another moped brother — the victim’s brother — was struck down by a taxi driven by the same driver, carrying the same passenger.

7. Long odds

Back in 1895, with the automobile still in its infancy, there were only two cars in the entire state of Ohio. That was until the two cars somehow found each other in the state’s 88,000 square miles and collided, meaning there were now zero cars in Ohio.

8. Poe predicts the future

Edgar Allan Poe claimed his The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, with its story of four shipwreck survivors forced to eat a cabin boy named Richard Parker, was based on true events. It wasn’t. But 46 years after it was written, there was a disaster at sea in which the crew from a stricken ship decided to eat their cabin boy — Richard Parker.

9. Intertwined fates

King Umberto I of Italy bonded with a restaurant owner after discovering that both men had been born on the same day, in the same town, and married a woman with the same name. A few days later, Umberto was saddened to learn that the man had been shot dead. Later that day, Umberto himself was assassinated.

10. The beginning of WWI predicts the end.

The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand touched off a firestorm that led to World War I. The car the archduke was killed in had the license plate number A111118. The armistice that ended hostilities in the war happened on November 11, 1918 – 11/11/18.

11. A very rare book

Actor Anthony Hopkins needed to research his role in the upcoming film The Girl From Petrovka, based on a novel by George Feifer. He couldn’t find any copies of the novel, but ran into some incredible luck when he found a copy sitting on a bench. He opened the cover and learned that it was Feifer’s annotated personal copy, which had earlier been stolen from the author.

12. Napoleon’s connection to Hitler

Adolf Hitler was born 129 years after Napoleon Bonaparte. He rose to power 129 years after Napoleon’s rise. He invaded Russia 129 years after Napoleon did the same thing. One guess as to how many years later he was defeated.
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13. Historical doppelgängers.

History is full of people with an uncanny likeness to one another (you’ve seen Nic Cage’s historical lookalike, right? But sometimes the situation isn’t just about lookalikes — it’s about lookalikes who seem to be full-on reincarnated from each other. Case in point: Ferrari founder Enzo Ferrari died in 1988 — the same year that his apparent twin, soccer player Mesut Özil, was born.

14. How a bunch of Canadians discovered a coral reef… near Greenland

Most coral reefs are located in the tropics, but Canadian researchers just happened to stumble upon the reef just Southwest of Greenland when they were collecting water samples. The reef is located 900 meters deep in an area with very strong currents, making it very hard to reach.

15. Wearing red could give you a boost in sports

Researchers used data dating all the way back to WWII to discover that home teams wearing red were more likely to win, while teams wearing yellow or orange were the least likely to come out on top. One reason proposed is the fact that fans may be more likely to support a team wearing red, thereby allowing them to allocate more resources to put a better team on the field.

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This post was written by Nadia Vella