The Most Unlikely Coincidences Of All Time
Merriam-Webster’s entry for “coincidence” reads, “the occurrence of events that happen at the same time by accident but seem to have some connection.” This might seem a strangely lifeless definition, because the truth is that few things amaze and entertain us as much as unexpected quirks of fate. We’ve collected 20 of history’s most startling coincidences — some tragic, some cheering. Read on to be diverted and amazed by some of history’s most uncanny twists.
1. A Booth saves a Lincoln’s life
As the man who in 1865 assassinated Abraham Lincoln, John Wilkes Booth’s name lives on in infamy. But this was not the first connection between a Booth family member and the Lincolns.
Booth’s brother, a well-known actor called Edwin, had an encounter with the President’s son Robert Todd. Just a month before Lincoln’s murder, Edwin was on a platform at the train station in Trenton, New Jersey, when Robert stumbled and nearly fell under a train. Edwin grabbed his arm, dragging him to safety.
2. Separated at birth
In 1940 a set of identical twins were born in Ohio. The two were separated and adopted by different families, one growing up as James “Jim” Springer, the other as James “Jim” Lewis. Neither was aware they had a twin, although they lived just 45 miles apart.
The two Jims were reunited in 1979. It then emerged that not only were they both Jim, they each had sons, one called James Alan, the other James Allan. Both had owned a dog called Toy. To top it all, they’d both been married twice. Their first wives were both called Linda and their second were both named Betty.
3. Real life mimics gruesome fiction
In Edgar Allan Poe’s 1837 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket four sailors survive a violent storm. But their ship is almost destroyed, leaving them adrift and without provisions. Starvation threatens, so they draw lots. One Richard Parker is the unlucky one and his companions kill and eat him.
Nearly 50 years after Poe’s novel was published, four men set sail from England aboard the Mignonette. It was wrecked and the men escaped aboard a dinghy. Running out of food, three of the men decided to kill and eat the fourth, who had been gravely ill. This real-life person was called Richard Parker.
4. Lost and found
In 1974 actor Anthony Hopkins landed a role in a movie called The Girl from Petrovka, based on a novel by George Feifer. Naturally enough, Hopkins wanted to read the book. But he couldn’t find a copy anywhere.
Then one day he came across a discarded edition of the book at London’s Leicester Square underground station. Meeting Feifer a few days later, Hopkins told him the tale. It turned out that the author had mislaid his copy. They discovered the book Hopkins had found was the actual one Feifer had lost.
5. Look closely
Here’s an excellent coincidence for conspiracy-theory enthusiasts. Most historians agree that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Serbian nationalists was the final spark that triggered World War I in 1914.
At the time of his death, the Archduke had been traveling in a car with the license plate “AIII 118”. That seems like a fairly mundane and obscure fact. But look again at the characters. After four years of horror, WWI finally ended with the Armistice of November 11, 1918. You can also write those numbers as 11/11/18 mirroring the figures on the license plate!
6. Two Laura Buxtons
Back in 2001 a ten-year-old English girl named Laura Buxton decided it would be a good idea to release a balloon from her backyard with her name and address written on it. She hoped that maybe the person who found it would send her a reply.
The ten-year-old got way more than she bargained for when the recipient ended up being a similarly-aged girl also named Laura Buxton who lived 140 miles away. The coincidences piled up: the girls both owned black Labradors, gray rabbits, and guinea pigs. Plus the two Lauras were both the same height, had fair hair, and were only children.
7. A macabre case
It was in London’s East End in September 1888 when Catherine Eddowes was found blind drunk and was taken to the local police station. When she was released, she gave police a false name, presumably hoping to hide her true identity: she said her name was Mary Ann Kelly.
That same night, Eddowes was tragically murdered by Jack the Ripper, whose identity remains a mystery to this day. Just weeks later he murdered another young woman, who went by the name of Mary Kelly, the tragic final victim of the Ripper’s reign of terror.
8. A family tragedy
Construction of the monumental Hoover Dam on the Colorado River started in 1930. Yet surveyors were at work years before any actual concrete was poured. On December 20, 1921, a man called John Tierney was surveying when a flash flood drowned him.
Undeterred by this tragic loss, Tierney’s son Patrick went to work on the dam during its construction. But on December 20, 1935, Patrick lost his footing at the top of the heights of an intake tower and plunged to his death. Father and son had perished 14 years apart on the same date.
9. A grave warning
In 1941 Soviet archaeologists stumbled upon a mind-boggling discovery: the tomb of Tamerlane, an ancient and ruthless conqueror. The grave entrance included an ominous inscription. It read, “Whomsoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I.”
The Soviets continued with their excavation anyway, opening the tomb despite the terrifying warning. Very soon after that, Adolf Hitler launched the biggest military invasion of all time against their nation, dragging it into the slaughter of WWII. The 14th-century warrior’s threat had become all too real!
10. A cunning plan goes wrong
After WWI broke out in 1914 the Germans came up with a cunning plan. They converted a passenger liner, the Cap Trafalgar, into a warship and disguised her as a British passenger liner, the Carmania; they even painted her in the English ship’s colors.
Unknown to the Germans, the British had also decided to convert a passenger liner into a warship — the real Carmania. Incredibly, the two ships, the fake Carmania and the real Carmania then met in September 1914 near Trindade Island, roughly 700 miles off the Brazilian coast. After a fierce battle, the British ship sank her doppelganger.
11. A three-time survivor
Born in 1887 Violet Constance Jessop became an involuntary expert on marine disasters. In 1911 she was working as a stewardess aboard the passenger liner Olympic when HMS Hawke smashed into it: Jessop escaped unscathed. Then she joined the crew of the Titanic on its maiden — and of course last — voyage.
Jessop survived that catastrophic sinking, and you’d have thought that by now she might’ve had enough of life at sea. But not a bit of it: in 1916 she was working as a nurse aboard the Britannic when it sank in the Aegean Sea. Yet again she survived, living on to the age of 83.
12. Astonishing atomic bomb tale
As almost everyone knows, in August 1945 the Americans dropped an atom bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Tsutomu Yamaguchi, a 29-year-old naval engineer, was in the city on business: he had been due to leave the next day. But he ended up just 2 miles from the epicenter of the blast. Yet he survived, albeit with serious burns.
He immediately returned to his home city of Nagasaki. Of course, three days after Hiroshima, another atom bomb was dropped, this time on Nagasaki. Again he was just 2 miles from where the bomb detonated, but again he miraculously lived to tell the tale.
13. A deadly day for presidents
July 4 is of course a highly symbolic date for Americans. But in the early days of the United States it was also a very dangerous day for American presidents. That’s because no fewer than three of the first five men to serve as President died on that date.
Two presidents, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, actually died on July 4 in the same year, 1826. Then, just five years later to the day,the fifth commander-in-chief James Monroe also met his end.
14. Far too much lightning
They say that lightning never strikes twice. But whoever “they” are , they’re completely wrong. Major Walter Summerford, a British soldier who fought in WWI, was living proof of that. His first encounter with lightning came in Belgium in 1918; the experience temporarily paralyzed him.
His second electrifying experience came in 1926 after he’d moved to Canada. He was struck while river fishing, again partially paralyzing him. Then in 1930 lightning struck him a third time, this time leaving him virtually entirely incapacitated. Bedridden, he soldiered on until his eventual death in 1932 but lightning caught him a fourth time: it also struck his grave in 1936!
15. Mexico City’s unluckiest date
It’s September 19, 1985, when a major earthquake hits Mexico City. Many buildings are badly damaged and 400 collapse altogether. Some 250,000 are made homeless and more than 10,000 lose their lives.
Fast-forward to September 19, 2017, and there’s another earthquake that hits Mexico City, this time resulting in 360 deaths. And on yet another September 19 — this time in 2022 — Mexico City was once again shaken to its foundations. Mercifully, only one death was reported after this third September 19 quake.
16. Civil War start and finish
The Battle of Bull Run in 1861 was the first major action of the Civil War. The two sides clashed on land owned by a Manassas, Virginia, grocer called Wilmer McLean. Indeed, his farmhouse acted as a Confederate headquarters.
Roll on to 1865 and by then McLean had moved to Appomattox, Virginia. His home now hosted another highly significant event: it was there in 1865 that Confederate General Robert E. Lee formally surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant, bringing an end to the Civil War.
17. Mark Twain’s comet
When Mark Twain was born in 1835 in Florida, Missouri, Halley’s Comet was speeding through the skies above the town. In 1909 Twain told his biographer Albert Bigelow Paine, “It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.”
In fact the next appearance of the comet, the first since Twain’s birth, was due the following year, 1910. And sure enough, Twain died in April 2010 while Halley’s Comet was once more visible as it sailed though the heavens.
18. Two Dennis the Menaces
Dennis the Menace has been a cartoon favorite of American children for decades. You might say he represents an archetypal naughty but lovable kid. In the United Kingdom as well, Dennis the Menace has been delighting generations of youngsters.
But these are two quite separate Dennis the Menaces. The British boy looks very different to the American, and he’s got a fair bit more evil in his character. So who came first? They both did! American Hank Ketcham’s Dennis was launched in March 1951. British David Law’s Menace landed in the exact same month. Yet there was no collusion between the two artists.
19. A seaside encounter
Nick Wheeler spent the early years of his childhood in the English county of Kent before moving at the age of six to Cornwall. Aimee Maiden was born and brought up in the seaside town of Mousehole in Cornwall. The two met as adults and hit it off, so they decided to marry.
In 2014 — soon after their wedding — they were leafing through some old Wheeler family photos. There was one of Nick on vacation at Mousehole beach building a sandcastle, aged six. Aimee recognized the random child he was playing with: it was her! The photo had been taken 11 years before they met again without recognizing each other.
20. Lincoln and Kennedy
The presidential terms of Abraham Lincoln and John F. Kennedy were separated by a century. Yet the two men share a number of eerie similarities. Both of course were the tragic victims of assassins, both dying from bullet wounds to the head and both seated with their wives at the deadly moment.
But there’s more: Kennedy’s vice president and successor was Lyndon B. Johnson, while Lincoln’s was another Johnson, Andrew. And both men had been born to their respective families as second children.