Crazy Coincidences That Are Hard To Believe Actually Happened

Mark Twain’s death prediction

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Every 76 years, Halley’s comet passes across Earth’s atmosphere. A cool phenomenon, right? When it hurtled across the skies in 1835, famous American author Mark Twain was born. The legendary writer was a brilliant humorist and, all through his life was known for his jests. In 1909, the writer remarked that he was born when Halley’s comet came and would pass away the subsequent year in 1910 when it was expected to return. Surprisingly, Mark Twain died on the same day it appeared.

The Reincarnation of Enzo Ferrari

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Many people think the concept of reincarnation is dubious. However, on August 14, 1988, the founder of the Ferrari automobile company Enzo Ferrari died. A month later, on October 15, 1988, former Arsenal FC soccer player Mesut Özil was born. But here is the coincidence. These two men have a striking resemblance. If you picked Enzo Ferrari’s and Mesut Özil’s photos and placed them side by side, you would not find any difference between them. And the fact that one died and the other was born during the same year makes it mind-boggling.

Trump for president

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The comedic show ‘The Simpsons’ has strangely predicted many events since its premiere. But the most remarkable of these predictions was the election of the Republican party candidate, Donald J. Trump, in one of their episodes in 2000. It was impossible to imagine Trump running for president because he was a celebrity businessman with controversial affairs up on his marital sleeve. You can imagine how shocking it was for him to run for the 2016 presidential election and win it. Just as ‘The Simpsons’ had envisioned.

The Titanic prediction

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In 1912 when the Titanic sank, many stories were crafted to explain that the tragedy was foreseen. However, one coincidence stood out greatly. In 1898, an American Fantasy writer, Morgan Robertson, wrote about the sinking of a great ship called ‘The Titan.’ The same fate that met the fictional Titan met the Titanic. Both manufacturers proudly declared that the ships were unsinkable and that there were insufficient lifeboats on board. Moreover, both ships hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic, leading to their subsequent sinking. How coincidental!

Presidential assassination

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Presidents John F. Kennedy and Abraham Lincoln share some of the most incredible coincidences ever noted in American history. While it is known that both presidents had their terms cut short after getting assassinated, it is interesting to know that their shooters aimed at the back of the head. Moreover, both presidents died on Friday. While Kennedy died on the eve of the Thanksgiving holiday, Lincoln died on the eve of Easter. Their wives were also present in the assassination scene. Did you know both presidents had four children and a friend called Billy Graham? Furthermore, their vice presidents also had the surname ‘Johnson’.

The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand

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The heir to the Austrian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, met his untimely end when a Serbian rebel publicly shot him on his visit to Sarajevo. While in his car with his wife, Gavrilo Princip charged at the motorcade and opened fire. The death sparked the beginning of the first world war in 1914. However, something interesting was noted about the vehicle’s plate number ‘A III 118’. The first world war officially ended on November 11, 1918. A detail that makes you wonder if it was prophetic.

Surviving double terror attacks

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It is not easy to be in the wrong place two times in your life. Many people who have survived life-threatening situations rarely encounter them again. And if they do, they will likely die in the second encounter. However, an American called Matthew was a peculiar case. He survived two terror attacks. In 2001, he was sauntering along the streets of New York City when a United Airlines plane crashed into the Twin Towers; he survived the incident. Later in the Bataclan theatre attack, Matthew played dead after getting shot. He managed to survive a second time.

The Lady who could never sink

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How would you view someone who has survived several shipwrecks? Some people would imagine this to be luck, while others may whisper that such a person is a bad omen. Violet Jessop is one such individual, a nurse working on several ships across the Atlantic. It is a coincidence that she was among the survivors of HMS Olympic when it hit another ship, HMS Hawke. Later, she would survive HMHS Britannic when it hit a sea mine. When she traveled on the ill-fated Titanic, she was also fortunate enough to survive the tragic sinking.

Edgar Allan Poe’s prediction

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Edgar Allan Poe was the master of the bizarre. Something about his stories strikes a dark sense of foreboding. He wrote a book called ‘The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket’ where he described an incident of four sailors surviving a shipwreck and, in their solemn despair and hunger, feasted on a cabin boy called Richard Parker. Coincidentally, forty-six years later, when a certain vessel got wrecked, its crew was forced to eat a cabin boy. His name was Richard Parker. Chilling!

The identical twins from Ohio

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Identical twins have a lot in common. But this can be attributed to the fact that they grow up together and are likely to ape each other’s interests and behavior. In Ohio, however, a set of twins grew up in separate households since birth. Despite never knowing each other, their caregivers named them ‘James.’ They grew up in different locations but still maintained several similarities. Both became police officers, each with a pet dog named ‘Toy.’ Moreover, both of them married a woman called ‘Linda.’ Then as if this was not enough, they divorced their first wives and remarried women called ‘Betty.’

The Hoover Dam tragedy

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Constructing a dam is a dangerous affair. During the construction of the Hoover Dam, about 96 people are recorded to have died. Among these casualties was a man called George Tierney, a geological surveyor. This incident happened on December 20, 1922. The project was completed in 1935, but not without its casualties. On December 20, 1935, the last man to die during dam construction was Patrick Tierney, the son of the man who first died there. It was reported that he fell from an electrical tower. Shocking!

The Buried British soldiers

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The first world war had a lot of casualties. The British lost almost a million soldiers between 1914 – 1918. Interestingly, when many British soldiers were buried in a cemetery in Belgium, the first soldier who died in the war had his grave facing the last soldier claimed by the war. In the Saint Symphorien military cemetery, the grave of 17-year-old John Parr was fifteen feet apart from 30-year-old George Edwin Ellison. John Parr was the first, and George Edwin Ellison was the last. No one had planned for such a coincidence.

The Tomb of Tamerlane

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The Soviets were on an archaeological expedition in 1940 at a site in Uzbekistan when they discovered the tomb of Tamerlane. According to historical accounts, Tamerlane was a progeny of the Mongol conqueror Genghis Khan. He was the founder of the Timurid empire in Persia and Central Asia. An inscription on his tomb warned the excavators against tampering with the grave as they would unleash a conqueror of equal might. It turns out that Adolf Hitler would invade Europe with unmatched strength and occupy almost all its frontiers two years after the Soviet unearthing of Tamerlane’s grave.

Catherine Eddowes and Mary Kelly

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In a case of bad luck, on the night of September 29, 1888, a woman called Catherine Eddowes was arrested in London for drunkenness. During her interrogation, she gave out a fake name. ‘Mary Kelly.’ At 12:55 am, she became sober and was released to go home. Unfortunately, she met her gruesome death after meeting Jack the Ripper that night. On that very night, Jack the Ripper kills another woman named ‘Mary Kelly.’ Dreadful!

The Dutch Cyclist

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How can anyone be so lucky to survive two plane tragedies? This is the case of Dutch Cyclist Maarten De Jonge. He was supposed to board Malaysia airlines flight 370, but he decided to forego that journey. The cyclist decided to take another flight scheduled an hour earlier than the one initially planned. Flight 370 disappeared over the Indian Ocean, never to be found again. In 2014, Maarten was about to travel using Malaysia airlines flight 17 but found a cheaper flight that he opted for. Flight 17 was shot down in Ukraine, and Maarten escaped certain death. For a second time!

The Commette family

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When a meteor glides across space and hurtles down to Earth, the chances of hitting someone are very diminutive. However, it is baffling that a meteor would hit the home of the ‘Commettes’. The French family was surprised that a meteor would seemingly target their compound because their surname was related to an astronomical body. Thankfully, no one died in the incident, and the family got to keep the rock for themselves, like a blessing from the skies.

Stephen Hawking, Galileo, and Albert Einstein

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Geniuses have a lot of similarities, and there seems to be a pattern within their birth and death dates. Cosmologist and theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death and died on Albert Einstein’s 139th birthday anniversary. Galileo Galilei was a great scientist who made revolutionary discoveries in astronomy. His contributions would help Einstein understand the universe and formulate his relativity theories. Hawking would build upon these theories of his pioneers to become the greatest cosmologist of our time.

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams

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John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were political contemporaries who set a new path for America after declaring independence from Britain. But they were also political rivals who had different ideologies that set them against each other during presidential elections. But they would later become cordial to each other after their presidential terms, and both died in 1826. The founding fathers of America died four hours apart from each other on the independence anniversary.

John Wilkes Booth’s brother and Abraham Lincoln’s son

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Years before John Wilkes Booth assassinated the American president Abraham Lincoln, a rare twist of fate met Robert Todd Lincoln and Edwin Booth. Edwin Booth, who worked as a theatre actor during the civil war, supported the Union. At a train station, Robert Todd Lincoln, who was leaning on a train, fell on the tracks when its engines were coughed up. In what would have been a tragic death for the president’s son, Edwin pulled the lad by the collar and helped him up before the train ran on him. Shocking!

The Homes of Wilmer McLean

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When the American civil war began in 1861 between the Union army and the Confederate troops, a 46-year-old grocer called Wilmer McLean had to relocate from his home in Manassas, Virginia, when the first battle erupted. He and his wife moved to Appomattox, Virginia, hoping to find safety. During the four years of the war, everything ran smoothly as he remained unaffected by the war, ripping the nation apart until the final battle came in the Appomattox court house where Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses Grant ending the war. Just paces away from McLean’s property.

The red balloon of Laura Buxton

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Coincidentally, a balloon would connect two people with similar names. In 2001, a 10-year-old girl called Laura Buxton released a red balloon in a strong wind. The balloon was scribbled with the statement ‘Please return to Laura Buxton,’ and the address noted there. The balloon was whisked southward 140 miles to another compound. Another girl found the balloon and opted to return it. Surprise! Surprise! The other girl was also a 10-year-old girl named Laura Buxton. There were peculiar similarities between them; the most interesting fact was that they both had guinea pigs and grey rabbits.

Survivor of the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombings

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When the Americans dropped the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945, an unfortunate Tsutomo Yamaguchi, who was undertaking some business in the city, witnessed the explosion and got seriously injured. When he decided to flee from the nuked city, he found himself in Nagasaki. The US dropped a bigger atomic bomb on Nagasaki two days later. Despite the serious burns he sustained in this second tragedy, he survived and lived until he died in 2010.

Alec Guinness on James Dean’s death

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The unfortunate road accident that claimed the life of movie celebrity James Dean has been analyzed over the years. Many people have tracked some coincidences that could be derived from the tragedy, including the disturbing premonition that Alec Guinness had before the ill-fated ride. Alec remarked that the vehicle was in bad condition and that it would kill the celebrated actor the following week. Then it happened as predicted. Seven days later, a fatal accident sealed Dean’s life.

The Savior of Jiangsu province

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Do you believe in guardian angels? Well, you should. In Jiangsu, China, a man called Xu Weifang saved both father and son from drowning. Despite being 80 years old, he was able to wade through the thick waters to save an 8-year-old boy. Later it would be discovered that thirty years before the incident, Weifang had saved the boy’s father from drowning when he was just a boy. Incredible that two generations would be saved thanks to one man.

Couple in the same childhood photo

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Now here is a sweet coincidence that would have you believe in destiny. Nick Wheeler and his fiancee Aimee Maiden were looking at their childhood photos when they discovered something mind-blowing. Eleven years before their encounter, Nick’s family made a trip to the beach near Aimee’s town. When a photo was taken of Nick’s family, surprisingly, Aimee’s family, which was also on the beach that day, appears in the background. They did not even know each other.

The Lost Language

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Languages are intrinsically different in many ways. Relations among them can be traced from parent versions of themselves that splintered into numerous forms. English would have no relation whatsoever to a lost aboriginal tongue. However, it may be interesting to know that a dog was called a ‘dog’ in the Mbabaram language. The coincidence here is baffling. There has been no contact between the lost Mbabaram language and English. How the two languages would share one word for the same thing remains a mystery to linguists.

Almost married

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Some instances in life are a close shave. Take the case of Stephen and Helen Lee who got engaged and realized that their parents almost got married in the 60s. During their engagement, they skimmed through their families’ photos and realized that Helen’s mother and Stephen’s late father were engaged to be married while they were in Korea. However, their parents disapproved of their relationship, and they had to resort to other partners.

Robert Todd Lincoln and the presidential assassinations

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Robert Todd Lincoln was perhaps an unlucky man to witness three presidential assassinations. He sat by his father’s bed after the assassination at the Ford’s theatre. With the rest of the family, he would watch his father’s last moments. Robert would later be an eyewitness to the shooting of James Garfield. In 1901, President William McKinley in New York invited him to a presidential address. He would then witness the president get shot during this address.

A signed copy of ‘The Girl from Petrovka’

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Legendary actor Anthony Hopkins was about to play the role of ‘Kostya’ in the film adaptation of ‘The Girl from Petrovka’ in the early 70s. He wanted to find a copy of the book to perfect his understanding of the role. However, no bookstore or library had any copies. One day when he was on a London-bound train, he saw that exact book there, abandoned by someone. Not only was the copy an original, but it was also signed ‘By George Feifer,’ the book's author. What a coincidence to find an author’s copy of a book you desperately need.

Looking for my daughter

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The separation between a father and his daughter led to the strangest coincidences ever recorded. After separating from his wife, Michael Dick had not seen his daughter for over ten years. His daughter Lisa and her mother moved to Suffolk. Michael then began a quest to find his daughter. He gave out a recent photograph he had taken of himself and two other daughters to a newspaper firm. Lisa would see the photo in the dailies, and what surprised her even more, was that she and her mother were standing in the photo's background. Neither of them was aware that they were in the same location when the photo was taken.