Top 50 Creepiest REAL-LIFE Coincidences

Top-50-Creepiest-Coincidences-in-History

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for 50 incredible moments when life was stranger than fiction.

#50: The Story of Xu Weifang
Despite a seemingly constant influx of bad news filtering into our media diet, it’s important to remember: the world is filled with unsung heroes. One such hero is Xu Weifang, a resident of Jiangsu Province in China. One day in 2018, Mr. Weifang happened upon an eight year old boy drowning in a river. Despite being 80 at the time - and having some pre-existing injuries from a fall - Mr. Weifang lept into action. He saved the boy, much to his family’s relief. The story would have ended there but for a truly bizarre bit of random chance: Mr. Weifang had saved the boy’s father from a nearly identical situation thirty years before.

#49: ‘til Death Do Us Part
Margaret and John Naylor were an Irish couple living in Dublin at the start of the 20th century. When World War I broke out, John left his family to join the Royal Dublin Fusiliers. John fought bravely on the battlefields and in the trenches of France. Unfortunately, John died in a gas attack in Hulluch on April 29th, 1916. Tragically, Margaret would never hear the news. On that same day back home in Dublin, civil unrest had boiled over in the Easter Week Rising. Irish republicans, rebelling against British rule, clashed with British soldiers. Margaret was shot at the crossfire on Ringsend Drawbridge, lying wounded for hours before anyone helped her. She died in hospital several days later, orphaning their three children.

#48: Nebraska Church Explosion
Sometimes, an event takes place that seems due to divine intervention. One such near-catastrophe took place in Beatrice, Nebraska on March 1st, 1950. It was a chilly evening, so the reverend of West Side Baptist Church lit the furnace to warm up choir practice. He went home for dinner. He was late for the 7:15 practice because his daughter’s dress needed to be clean. Every member of the choir had similarly mundane and random reasons to show up late that night. From car trouble, to problems with math homework, to plain old laziness, all 15 church members were late. As it turned out, that tardiness saved their lives. At the time choir practice was supposed to start, the furnace exploded, collapsing the building.

#47: The "My Way” Killings
The Philippines saw a truly bizarre series of violent incidents between 2000 and 2012. Though they were seemingly unconnected, there was one through line: they were all responses to karaoke performances of Frank Sinatra's song "My Way." These incidents often occurred in bars and karaoke clubs where patrons would sing the song, provoking assaults and murders. The reasons behind the violent reactions are varied. Some were disputes over off-key renditions. One theory is that the song’s lyrics lend themselves to perceived arrogance by the singers. Whatever the reason, many karaoke bars in the Philippines removed "My Way" from their song lists. By the end of the phenomena, at least six people had been killed.


#46: Left Handed Presidents
According to studies, nine out of every ten people are right handed. One would think, then, that subgroups of people would reflect a similar distribution. When it comes to American presidents, though, that assumption would be incorrect. Of the fourteen U.S. Presidents since the end of the Second World War, six of them - or 42% - have been left-handed. Biologists and psychologists have actually tackled this esoteric topic in academic articles. Theories abound. Some think it has to do with their more dominant right brain hemispheres. Others think that southpaws develop levels of creativity and divergent thinking ideal for politicians. Whatever the reason, the number of lefty presidents seems too high to be a mere coincidence.

#45: Thomas Lawson and Friday the 13th
Thomas W. Lawson was a stockbroker in London who wrote a novel in 1907, "Friday the Thirteenth." It was the tale of another British stockbroker who attempted to crash the market on a Friday the 13th. The book was a smash hit, forever linking that day with bad luck in the stock market. Two years later, a schooner named the Thomas W. Lawson was making her first transatlantic trip. It was named after a different Lawson, but the connection is incredibly eerie. On the night of December 13, 1907 - a Friday - the schooner sailed into a terrible storm. She sank in the wee hours of the morning, the 17 souls aboard lost at sea.

#44: Battle of the Carmanias
During World War I, some private shipping companies saw their vessels commandeered by their respective governments. Many such ships were transatlantic steamers and merchant vessels, retrofitted into battleships. Germany requisitioned the vessel Cap Trafalgar, painting her to look like the British merchant ship the RMS Carmania. The plan was to use her as a Judas goat, luring allied vessels into their demine. Unfortunately, on September 14, 1914, the Cap Trafalgar happened to run into the actual RMS Carmania, ruining the ruse. It was a ferocious battle - the first ever to take place between ocean liners. The real Carmania won out, sinking her doppelganger.

#43: The Double Survivor
September 11th, 2001 was the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. There are many stories from survivors about how fickle twists of fate saved their lives. One such person was a man named Matthew, who came face-to-face with fate not once, but twice in his life. Matthew was passing the Twin Towers at the time, on his way to a business meeting. Fourteen years later, Matthew was in Paris, enjoying a show at the Bataclan theater. Terrorists entered the club shooting dozens upon dozens of the concert goers. Matthew was one of those shot, though he survived by slowly crawling to safety. It’s hard to gauge the quality of Matthew’s luck, having barely survived two separate terrorist attacks.

#42: Megalith Construction
The world is littered with megaliths, stone constructs created by our ancient ancestors. Those who built them would have no connection to one another. Yet, some of their constructs - separated both by distance and time - appear to form straight lines. Starting in the 1920s, amateur historians and archaeologists (as well as occultists) have posited connections between these ancient sites and natural landmarks. These amateur sleuths began to call these pathways ley lines. Some believe that ley lines mark paths of electromagnetic power that encircle the earth. While there is no evidence to prove the existence of ley lines, it's hard to deny the coincidence that many - though certainly not all - megaliths seem to be built along gridlike lines.

#41: Capitol Hill Saved by a Tornado
Though The War of 1812 ostensibly ended in a draw, it also saw the White House get burned by British soldiers. One could argue, though, that the seat of the nascent American Republic - Capitol Hill - was saved by an act of providence. On August 25, 1814, as the redcoats marched on Washington, the heat was surging to 100 degrees. As the city burned, a cold front clashed with the flames and summer heat. Thunder clashed, rain poured down, and a tornado formed in the middle of the city. The funnel made a b-line towards the British, destroying cannons and battle lines alike. The British abandoned the city, damaging but unable to burn down Capitol Hill.

#40: Flight 666 flew into HEL on Friday the 13th
Airports around the world are represented by three-letter codes. The code for Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, the primary airport of Finland’s capital, is HEL. Finavia, the airport’s owner, has had fun with the initials. In October of 2017, they had a PR campaign, #lifeinhel. It was a mixed media campaign, with TV and online content. They even had a well-known Chinese actor spend a month living at the airport. Three days after the launch of the campaign, on Friday the 13th, Finnair’s regular flight 666 from Copenhagen flew straight to HEL. There was no bad luck to be found, but what a way to tempt fate.

#39: November 9th: The German ‘Day of Fate’
Mark Twain once said, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Germans know that Twain was right. Dating back to 1848, many history-shaping events of German history all occurred on the same day. November 9th is so significant in Germany, they have a name for it: Schicksalstag, or the “Day of Fate.” On November 9th, 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicated the throne, ending the 500 year reign of Haus Hohenzollern. Just a few years later, Hitler’s failed Beer Hall Putsch ended on November 9th, 1923, launching his political career. In 1938, on November 9th, the S.S. launched Kristallnacht: a violent pogrom against the nation’s Jewry. It’s not all dark history, however. November 9th, 1989 saw the fall of the Berlin Wall.

#38: The Graves of the First and Last WWI Casualties Face Each Other
World War I was the bloodiest war in the history of England. The Battle of the Somme, for instance, claimed more British lives than every single post-WWII British battle combined. The nation lost 6% of its total male population to the war. Many of those fallen soldiers rest in the St Symphorien Military Cemetery. However, there is an odd and unplanned coincidence with their graves. The first British casualty of the war was a young man named John Parr. The last was thirty-year-old George Edwin Ellison. Parr and Ellison both lie at St Symphorien, seven yards apart and facing one another. Their graves act as somber bookends to a tragic chapter in their nation’s history.

#37: The Civil War Began and Ended on the Same Man’s Property
The first shots of the American Civil War rang out at Fort Sumter, South Carolina. It wasn’t a battle, per se. There were only eighty-five defenders and the few casualties came from an accident during the surrender. The first pitched battle occurred later with the First Battle of Bull Run in Manassas, Virginia. It was named for a stream that ran through the farmland of a grocer named Wilmer McLean. The battle was fierce and bloody, revealing to the country just how horrific a protracted war on American soil would become. After the battle, McLean fled his home to find safety. He moved to Appomattox, Virginia. Four years later, Robert E. Lee incidentally surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in the parlor of McLean’s Appomattox home.

#36: Major Summerford Defied the Odds in the Worst Way Imaginable
Walter Summerford, a British major during World War I, was sent home from the front in Belgium in 1918. He wasn’t hit by a bullet or a mortar shell: Summerford was struck by lightning. He was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down and sent back home. Six years later, while fishing in a local river, Summerford was struck by lightning for a second time. Again, Summerford had to rehabilitate from temporary paralysis. Fast forward another six years and the major’s luck ran out. He was hit by lightning a third time during a stroll in the park. He struggled for two years in a hospital bed before succumbing. Four years after that, his tombstone was struck by lightning. That’s four strikes, one every six years.

#35: The Commettes Hit by a Meteor
There is a reason why meteors are incredibly valuable. Many meteoroids break up in the atmosphere after hurtling through space for millions or billions of years. According to National Geographic, the chances of getting hit by a meteor are approximately 1 in 1.6 million. In 2011, one meteoroid fell to earth and landed on a house in France. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. This sort of event was newsworthy thanks to its unlikelihood alone. However, there is an odd wrinkle to this particular story. The home was owned by the Comette family.

#34: Anthony Hopkins and “The Girl from Petrovka”
In the early 1970s, Anthony Hopkins’s career was stalling. He hoped to jump start it with an audition for “The Girl from Petrovka,” an adaptation of an American novel. Hopkins was desperate for a break and wanted to be as prepared as possible. He frantically searched for the novel but learned it wasn’t yet available in the UK. Despondent, he went to the subway and sat on a bench to wait for the train. He noticed a bound manuscript on the bench next to him: one for the exact book he was searching for. He got the part, and a year later met the author on set in Vienna. He then learned that the author had lost that same copy in a stolen car.

#33: The Curse of “The Omen”
Horror movies like “The Exorcist” are famous for having productions plagued with creepy tragedies. Few such movies appear to be as cursed as 1976’s “The Omen.” Both before and after the film, the cast and crew began to suffer strange accidents. Star Gregory Peck’s son took his own life after Peck took the role. Special effects guru John Richardson oversaw the film’s death scenes. On his next gig, he and his girlfriend were in a car crash where she died in a manner similar to one death in “The Omen.” Both screenwriter David Seltzer and executive producer Mace Neufeld were on airplanes struck by lightning. It’s hard to discount the possibility that the film was, in fact, cursed.

#32: Stephen Hawking’s Birthday and Death Day
Stephen Hawking was one of the most famous physicists and cosmologists of the 20th and 21st centuries. He built on the work of astronomers and mathematicians going all the way back to Galileo. He deepened our understanding of the Big Bang, black holes, and time. Coincidentally, Hawking was somewhat famously born on the 300th anniversary of Galileo’s death. Adding to the creepy and bizarre symmetry, Hawking died on the birthday of Albert Einstein. It was as if the universe was determined to inextricably link three men responsible for our understanding of the cosmos.

#31: John Wilkes Booth’s Brother Saved Abraham Lincoln’s Son
Robert Todd Lincoln, the only of the President’s children to outlive his parents, himself had a long and storied career. Lincoln was at one time the Secretary of War as well as the U.S. ambassador to the U.K. That may never have happened if it weren’t for the intervention of a good samaritan. Lincoln was in New Jersey waiting for a train in the middle of a crowd. He slipped and fell onto the platform. Thankfully, an onlooker managed to pull Lincoln back onto the platform in time to avoid the oncoming train. That man was Edwin Booth, brother to the man who would ultimately kill Lincoln’s father, John Wilkes Booth. Coincidentally, Lincoln was also present at the assassinations of Presidents Garfield and McKinley.

#30: The Beginning and End of LIFE
Life Magazine helped define popular American culture in the 20th century. It was ubiquitous, on the shelves of every magazine stand, waiting room, and grocery checkout in the country. The first issue of the magazine as we currently know it was published on November 23, 1936. The first interior photo in the magazine’s history was a picture of a baby being cradled by his doctor after being delivered. The caption read “Life Begins.” That baby was George Story, who himself ultimately grew up to become a journalist. Decades later, on April 4th 2000, Life magazine announced that it would stop publication. Story died of heart failure a few days later.

#29: A Dutch Cyclist and Plane Crash Dodger
Maarten de Jonge is a former professional cyclist from Holland. His career peaked in 2014 with a first-place win in Stage 4 of the Tour of Thailand. What makes de Jonge’s life remarkable is not his career. Instead, he’s known for his shockingly good luck. The same year de Jonge won the aforementioned race, two separate Malaysia Airlines flights crashed. One - Flight 370 - went missing. The other, Flight 17, was shot down over Ukraine by Russia. De Jonge was allegedly planning to be on both flights. In the case of Flight 370, he decided to take a flight earlier in the day. With Flight 17, he ultimately chose a cheaper flight home.

#28: Bruce and Brandon Lee in “Game of Death” and “The Crow”
Despite Bruce Lee’s incredible fitness, he died suddenly at the age of thirty-two due to an allergic reaction to painkillers. Lee was in the middle of a movie production, filming “Game of Death.” The film was rewritten and partially reshot with a double in order to finish. In one scene, a prop master on a film set explains to a group of extras how to use a prop gun. One of them replaces a blank with a real bullet to try and kill Lee’s character. The scenes are eerily reminiscent of the death of Lee’s son Brandon decades later. While shooting “The Crow,” Brandon Lee died when a prop gun was misloaded. That film, too, was recut and partially reshot in order to finish.

#27: Hitler and Napoleon
In all of history, only Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler came close to conquering all of Europe. What is creepy is that their lives, rises to power, and falls mirror each other incredibly well. Separated by 120-130 years, their journeys were strikingly similar. Both were born in a country different from the one they would come to rule. Both seized power in a former superpower weakened by defeat in a previous war. They both utilized shockingly effective new military tactics to quickly conquer their neighbors, leaving England isolated and alone. Each leader was weakened by resistance movements in the territories they conquered. Ultimately, they were each undone by a poorly conceived invasion of Russia, each defeated by the bitter cold.

#26: Did Shakespeare Help Write the King James Bible?
By the time King James took the throne of England, his predecessor Queen Elizabeth had successfully established the Church of England as the national faith. Members of the church asked that a new, standardized English translation of the bible be commissioned. James jumped on the task, approving a team of 47 scholars to write it. The task was completed in 1611.There is, however, an oddity that has led to a novel conspiracy theory: William Shakespeare was secretly a co-author. The 46th word of Psalm 46 is ‘shake,’ while the 46th from the last word in that Psalm is “spear.” Shakespeare happened to turn 46 in 1611. Did the playwright secretly put his stamp on the book but slipped it past the King?

#25: Johannes Kepler’s Erroneous Interpretation of Galileo Led to a Major Discovery
Astronomy and astrophysics are disciplines that require patience over generations and centuries. Every scientist in those fields is limited by the technology of their times. They work in the hope that future generations will build on their progress. So it was with Galileo Galilei while observing Saturn’s rings. He sent letters out announcing his discovery, with this strange message: “SMAISMRMILMEPOETALEUMIBUNENUGTTAUIRAS.” For whatever bizarre reason, he hid his discovery in an indecipherable anagram. Johannes Kepler was the recipient of one of those letters. He thought it read “salve, umbistineum geminatum Martia proles.” That means “be greeted, double-knob, children of Mars.” He thought Galileo discovered two moons around Mars. While he misinterpreted the message, he was actually correct: Mars does have two moons, Phobos and Deimos.

#24: JFK May Have Predicted His Own Assassination
On November 22, 1963, all of the United States came to a standstill with the news that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated in Dallas. Nine years later, two of his closest friends and aides wrote a memoir about JFK titled “Johnny, We Hardly Knew Ye.” In that book, authors David Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell describe the events of that November morning. Jackie Kennedy had seen an anti-JFK ad in a local newspaper that was designed to resemble a funeral notice. It shook her terribly. The president allegedly responded, “We’re heading into nut country today. But Jackie, if somebody wants to shoot me from a window with a rifle, nobody can stop it, so why worry about it?”

#23: The Hoover Dam Tragedies
The Hoover Dam was one of the greatest American engineering marvels of the 20th century. At the time, it was the largest hydro-electric plant on Earth. Even today, it provides electricity for over one million Americans in three states. Construction took five years between 1931 and 1936, but plans for the dam began in the early 1920s. It was a massive undertaking, and one that ultimately cost the lives of 112 men. The second death associated with the dam occurred on December 20th, 1922, when surveyor John Gregory Tierney drowned in the Colorado River. The final death occurred exactly thirteen years later on December 20th, 1935. The man who died that day was Tierney’s son, Patrick.

#22: Predicting Pearl Harbor
Mere weeks leading up to the attack on Pearl Harbor, a peculiar set of advertisements for a board game ran in the New Yorker that sparked a short lived conspiracy theory. The ad was for a game called the “Deadly Double,” and in hindsight was filled with what seemed to be warnings for the aerial strike. The word “warning” was written on the promotion itself, and featured an illustration of people playing the dice game in an air-raid bunker. Arguably the strangest synchronicity was the numbers on two of the dice being “12” and “7”-- corresponding to the date of the attack. The theory was investigated, but it was revealed that these ads truly were nothing more than coincidences.

#21: One Man Survived both Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Tsutomu Yamaguchi was a Japanese draftsman for Mitsubishi. In the summer of 1945, he was on an extended business trip to Hiroshima. On August 6th, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the city. Yamaguchi saw the plane fly by and drop the bomb. He was lucky - while he suffered severe burns, he survived in a shelter with colleagues. The next day, he returned to his home city of Nagasaki. Three days after surviving a nuclear bomb, Yamaguchi was at work describing the experience to his boss when the second bomb fell. He was again far enough away from the blast to survive, suffering radiation poisoning with a week-long fever. He died at the age of ninety-three in 2010.

#20: Karma Kills
Many relationships end on a sour note, but they rarely result in the deaths of three people. Legend has it that in the late 19th century, Henry Ziegland broke up with his girlfriend, who killed herself as a result. Her brother hunted Ziegland down and shot him, ending his own life immediately after. Ziegland was not killed by the shot, however: the bullet barely missed him and came to rest in a nearby tree. Years later, Ziegland attempted to blow up the tree, only to have the blast propel the bullet into his head, killing him.

#19: The Erdington Murders
On May 27th, 1817, the body of a 20-year old local woman named Mary Ashford was found with signs of trauma in the suburb of Erdington in Birmingham, England. The man she’d been out with the previous evening, Abraham Thornton, was deemed the prime suspect. Due to a lack of evidence and a strong alibi, he was ultimately found not guilty, leaving the crime unsolved. Flash forward 157 years to 1974, and Erdington was struck by a nearly identical crime. Another 20 year old woman was found dead after having gone missing, like Mary Ashford, on the Christian holiday Whit Monday. The last person to see her? A man with the same last name, Michael Ian Thornton. He too was found not guilty.

#18: The Cases of Catherine Eddowes & Mary Kelly
On the evening of September 29th in 1888 London, a woman by the name of Catherine Eddowes was taken into custody for being drunk in the streets. The police, however, didn’t learn her real identity until after the fact, as she gave them a fake one during her stay in the drunk tank - that of Mary Kelly. If either of those names ring a bell, it’s because they both went on to meet the same grisly fate at the hands of Jack the Ripper. Eddowes was killed shortly after being released from custody. She was his second to last victim and one of only two to have her face mutilated. The other was none other than the real Mary Kelly, the Ripper’s last known victim.

#17: The Jim Twins
Let’s discuss a coincidence that, while nonetheless odd, does have a notably happier ending! Twins James “Jim” Lewis and James “Jim” Springer were separated shortly after birth and adopted by different families. They grew up without any contact with one another. When they finally did meet at the age of 39, the similarities between their lives proved downright uncanny. As children, they both had dogs named “Toy” and excelled in math and woodworking. As adults, they both were married twice, first to women named Linda, then to women named Betty. When they had sons, they both named them James Alan. They were both smokers, drove Chevies, and even chose to vacation at the same Florida beach!

#16: The King’s Double
For protection, many kings use body doubles. Apparently, King Umberto I of Italy came upon his own double by accident. While eating dinner at a small restaurant, Umberto noticed that the restaurant owner was nearly identical in looks to himself. But they soon discovered more similarities: they were both born in the same town on the same day in the same year, they both married a woman named Margherita, and the owner had opened his restaurant on the same day as Umberto was crowned King. Wait, it gets weirder: the day after the pair met, on July 29th, 1900, the owner was killed in an accidental shooting – the same day that Umberto was assassinated.

#15: James Dean's Car
Actor and icon James Dean died tragically at the tender age of 24. In addition to acting, Dean was passionate about cars to the point that he was contemplating venturing into professional racing. Unfortunately, on September 30th, 1955, his dreams were brought to a screeching halt when he got into a fatal accident on his way to a race in his brand new Porsche 550 Spyder. As is often the case with celebrity cars, the Spyder and its parts have since changed hands multiple times over, but they seem to bring bad luck to everyone they touch. The car’s engine has been involved in a number of subsequent accidents (one fatal), and the drivetrain another. A building where the car was stored caught fire.

#14: Two Finnish Brothers
They say that twins have an incredibly strong bond and often know what the other is thinking, feeling or doing. These two Finnish brothers took that bond to a whole other level in 2002, when both died on the same road in separate accidents within hours of each other. The first brother died when he was hit by a truck while riding his bike. The second brother died two hours later under the exact same circumstances, about 1.5 kilometers from the spot where his brother had been killed earlier.

#13: The Mysterious Monk
Frustrated with life and depressed, painter Joseph Aigner attempted to end his life on multiple occasions – once when he was 18, and once when he was 22. But, according to Ripley’s Believe It or Not, he was stopped both times by the same Capuchin monk. When he was 30, Aigner was sentenced to death for his political activities, but was again saved by the monk, who intervened on his behalf. Eventually, Aigner was successful, and killed himself with a pistol when he was 68-years-old. The funeral ceremony was conducted by – you guessed it – the exact same Capuchin monk, whose name Aigner had never even learned.

#12: Falling Baby
Raining cats and dogs is one thing. But babies?! One day in 1937, Detroit street sweeper Joseph Figlock was hit on the head by a baby who’d tumbled from a fourth floor window. Fortunately, Figlock broke the baby’s fall; while both were injured, the baby lived. A year later, Figlock was going about his business, sweeping in an alleyway, when ANOTHER child, this time a two-year old, fell from the sky. Right onto Figlock! Once again, Figlock unwittingly saved the day. Talk about being in the right place at the right time. Twice!

#11: A Painting That Predicted Hitler’s Evil
Before getting involved in politics and becoming one of the greatest monsters in human history, Hitler had aspirations as a painter. Even after abandoning these, however, he remained passionate about the arts, and this painting is said to have been one of his favorites. Painted by Franz von Stuck, an artist Hitler long admired, “The Wild Chase” is a gloomy and foreboding work that von Stuck just so happened to complete in 1889 - the year of Hitler’s birth. The painting depicts Wotan, a Germanic god, leading the mythic “wild hunt” followed by an army of the dead. Wotan bears a striking resemblance to Hitler and many retrospectively see this painting as having predicted his rise to power and bloody legacy.

#10: The Cannibalized Boy
One of the greatest authors of the 19th century, Edgar Allan Poe, wrote a book titled “The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket.” The book depicted four shipwreck survivors who eventually killed and ate a boy named Richard Parker. Several years after the publication of Poe’s story, a yacht called the Mignonette sank and left four survivors stranded at sea. The three older survivors eventually killed and ate the cabin boy – whose name was Richard Parker.

#9: Thomas Jefferson & John Adams
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were two of the most important players in the founding of the United States. Both played a large role in the creation and signing of the Declaration of Independence, which was eventually approved on July 4th, 1776. Although their relationship deteriorated over the years, they eventually reconciled, and oddly, died on the exact same day. That day? July 4th, 1826, exactly 50 years after the signing of the Declaration.

#8: Aztec Prediction of Cortez
In the early 16th century, the Aztec Empire was at the peak of its prosperity under Motecuzoma II. In 1519 however, an ancient and deadly prophecy seemingly came true, bringing unimaginable destruction to this awe-inspiring civilization. According to local legend, Quetzalcoatl, described as being bearded and of white skin, would one day return from his travels to once again stake his claim over the Aztec people. The predicted date on the Mayan calendar just so happened to coincide with the year when the Spanish conquistadors arrived, led by the bearded and white-skinned Hernán Cortés.

#7: 27 Club
The 27 Club refers to a group of famous people – mainly musicians – who have died at the age of 27. It started in the late 1960s when Rolling Stone Brian Jones, Doors’ frontman Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix all died at this age. Two and a half decades later, Kurt Cobain took his life at 27, and recently, Amy Winehouse died from substance use disorder issues at the age of 27. Winehouse actually stated years earlier that she was worried about dying at 27. All in all, the club has claimed over 60 artists, musicians and actors since the start of the 20th century.

#6: Mark Twain & Halley’s Comet
Mark Twain was born on November 30th, 1835 – just two weeks after Halley’s Comet was visible on Earth. Twain, who was the author of “The Adventures of Tom Sawyer” and “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” seemed to strongly associate with this celestial event. In fact, he famously declared: “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.” He died on April 21st, 1910 – one day after the comet had returned.

#5: Violet Jessup (AKA “Miss Unsinkable”)
This Irish Argentine stewardess had a knack for being at the WRONG place at the WRONG time . . . but somehow emerging unscathed. Violet Jessop was working aboard the RMS Olympic when it collided with British warship HMS Hawke in 1911. The Olympic had to limp back to port. However, that was just a taste of things to come. Jessop was also aboard the Titanic when it sank in 1912. And the HMHS Britannic, which sank in 1916 due to a sudden explosion, later revealed to have been a mine. This earned Jessop the nickname “Miss Unsinkable.” We’re thinking that with her luck, she was either the best person to stay close to aboard a ship . . . or maybe a reason to change ships entirely.

#4: Did The License Plate Number Of Archduke Franz Ferdinand's Car Hold A Secret Message
As most historians agree, the first world war - which would go on to last four years and claim the lives of millions - all began with the death of one man. On June 28th, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand was killed by Bosnian Serb Yugoslav nationalists. War soon followed, drawing in an ever-widening network of allies into what became a global conflict. No one had any clue when or how it would end, with one possible exception - a license plate. When looking for answers, it typically pays to go back to where it all started. Sure enough, the very car in which Franz Ferdinand was murdered contained a prediction. His license plate was “A II II 18” which many retroactively read as “Armistice - 11th November, 1918”.

#3: Tamerlane's Tomb
In June of 1941, Russian anthropologists, led by Mikhail Gerasimov, conducted a dig at the site at the Gur-e-Amir. This mausoleum was the final resting place of Tamerlane, a Turko-Mongol conqueror who founded the Timurid Empire, and was thought to be responsible for the death of up to 17 million people as a result of his deadly campaigns. Depending on who you ask however, he may have upped the body count post-mortem. Inside his casket, the anthropologists reportedly found the inscription “Whomsoever opens my tomb will unleash an invader more terrible than I." They went ahead and opened the tomb anyway, and three days later, Operation Barbarossa began. This Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union was the largest in human history.

#2: The Titan & the Titanic
In 1898, Morgan Robertson published a novella entitled “Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan.” The plot revolved around the HMS Titan, a British luxury liner that hit an iceberg and sank while crossing the northern Atlantic. Of course, in 1912, the Titanic sank in a similar fashion, and that’s where things get bizarre. Both ships were considered unsinkable, both hit an iceberg in the month of April approximately 400 miles from Newfoundland, both were approximately 800 feet long, and both resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 people. The lack of lifejackets and lifeboats was also a serious problem for both ships – tragically so for the real life Titanic.

#1: JFK & Abraham Lincoln
Lincoln and JFK were elected to congress 100 years apart in 1846 and 1946 respectively. They then both became president 14 years later in 1860/1960. Both were killed by fatal gunshot wounds to the head, and succeeded by men named Johnson who, wouldn’t you know it… just so happened to be born 100 years apart. Add to that some other coincidences like them dying on Friday, their family names containing seven letters, and the fact that they were both famous for their civil rights efforts, and you’ve got two presidents cut from an eerily similar cloth.

Of all the billions of videos out there, you just happened to watch this one. Is it a coincidence? Do you know of other strange coincidences in history? Let us know in the comments below.