History’s Ten Craziest Coincidences

Have you ever come across a bizarre coincidence? Not just a lighthearted moment of happenstance that makes you stop and shrug your shoulders for a second—we mean something so profoundly shocking that it completely changes your entire day. Coincidences can be interesting and notable for a lot of different reasons, of course. At their basest, simplest level, they might give you one of those “oh, well, how about that” moments. Or perhaps you’ll say, “Hey, what are the chances?”

But the coincidences we will break down in this list today aren’t like that at all. These are much deeper, crazier, more life-altering moments of incredibly low odds and unforeseen connections. Scroll down to read through this entertaining list, and be prepared to have your mind blown. Not literally, of course. However, once you get to the final coincidence listed here, you’ll understand why maybe someone might have their mind blown… up. You’ll see what we mean. Enjoy!

Related: 10 Coincidences and Connections in the World of True Crime

10 Dam Deaths

When the Hoover Dam was built in the 1920s, records from that time show that exactly 96 people died during its construction. That’s an unfortunate number, of course, but also one that may be expected, considering the incredible dangers associated with a project like that. (Especially when it comes to the period in which it was constructed a century ago!)

However, of the 96 deaths caused by the Hoover Dam’s construction, two of them really stand out. And that’s because they were father and son. And they died on the exact same day… 14 years apart. That’s right. On December 20, 1921 (though some sources cite 1922), a man named John Gregory Tierney died when he drowned in a flash flood that had been caused by the ongoing construction of the Hoover Dam.

Tierney was one of the construction crew’s first-ever fatalities, which made his death that much more poignant. But the work had to go on, and so it did… for the next 14 years. Fast forward to that very same day (December 20), but this time in 1935, and we come to the story of Patrick William Tierney. He was John’s only son, and on that day, he fell to his death while working on one of the dam’s incredibly high intake towers on the Arizona side of the monstrosity.

So father and son both died on the exact same day while constructing the Hoover Dam, albeit 14 years apart. What are the chances? Actually, on second thought, we don’t even want to know. We just feel awful for the matriarch of the Tierney family.^[1]

9 Stay Home, Lady!

The early 20th century saw three of the most infamous and deadly ship collision and sinking issues that the world has ever known. Believe it or not, one woman worked as a ship stewardess and unfortunately had the bad luck to be on board all three times. Her name was Violet Jessop, and she survived the three most harrowing shipwrecks of the modern era in shockingly quick succession.

Her bad luck began in 1911 when she worked as a stewardess on board the RMBS Olympic. While out at sea, it collided with a British warship and went down in a heap. Fortunately, there were no fatalities, and everybody made it away safely. But for Violet, that was only the beginning of her bad luck.

Her highly coincidental misfortune continued in 1912 when she was working on board the RMS Titanic when it sank in the waters of the North Atlantic Ocean. Sadly, many people died in that tragedy. Violet survived, though. She was able to get away in lifeboat number 16—and was handed a baby to hold during the freezing post-crash period before rescue.

And then, incredibly, she was involved in sinking the Titanic’s sister ship, the HMHS Britannic, four years later, in 1916. Again, in that one, Violet made it into a lifeboat. But this time around, the lifeboat was nearly sucked under the water by the ship’s propellers as the massive boat sank to the bottom of the ocean.

Violet was able to jump out of the lifeboat and survive what would have been sure death. In the end, she lived a very long life before dying at the ripe old age of 83 in 1971. Hopefully, nobody else ever got on another boat with her, though.^[2]

8 What a Whoopsie…

Have you ever fantasized about what it would be like to win the lottery? The home you’d buy, the new car you’d pick up, the clothes and items and things you’d stock up on… yeah. We’ve all been there. But if you’re anything like us, you’ve never actually come close to winning the lottery to make that dream come true. Sure, maybe you get a couple numbers right and win a few hundred dollars or something. However, most people will go their entire lives without ever coming close to seeing the kind of lottery money they dream about. And then there’s Maureen Wilcox.

In 1980, there was a New England woman named Maureen Wilcox who really loved to play the lottery. She lived close to the Massachusetts-Rhode Island state line, too, so she’d often play the lotteries in both states. One day, doing her patented two-state pick routine, she correctly chose the lottery numbers for both states.

Yes, you read that right: she picked the full set of proper lottery numbers for both Rhode Island and Massachusetts. There was just one little problem with her picking: She had picked the Rhode Island numbers for Massachusetts and the Massachusetts numbers for Rhode Island. So, while she was (technically) correct, she won absolutely nothing. What a brutal beat.^[3]

7 What a Death Date!

Stephen Hawking is one of the smartest people to ever live. And when he died, he did so on one of the most coincidentally important days in the history of math and science. See, Hawking died back on March 14, 2018. That day is notable because it’s actually Pi Day. You know, pi—the 3.14159 number that goes off into infinity and is somehow involved with circles. (Don’t ask us; we stopped doing math in about the eighth grade!)

Anyway, it wasn’t just Pi Day when he passed, though that alone would have been perfectly attuned to his life. It just so happened that the day of Hawking’s death was also significant because it would have been Albert Einstein’s 139th birthday… and famed astronomer Galileo Galilei’s 300th deathday. Put simply, it was long ago fated in the stars that Hawking was supposed to die on that day.^[4]

6 What’s in a Sandwich?

We all know by now that World War I came about in the aftermath of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. But what most of us don’t know is that his assassination only ever happened because one of his assassins failed earlier and was so frustrated that they decided to stop for a sandwich.

Initially, the Archduke’s would-be assassins had intended to kill him with a car bomb. The only problem was that their bomb actually hit the car behind the one that was carrying Ferdinand—and he managed to get away completely unscathed.

Predictably, the assassins were pissed about that. While a few of them floated off to devise a new plan, one hired killer named Gavrilo Princip decided to stop at a nearby cafe for a sandwich. And it just so happened to be that exact sandwich shop where the Archduke’s car rolled by just moments later.

The Archduke’s driver had gotten lost, and he turned down the street that held the sandwich shop where Princip was eating. When Princip realized he had the incredible fortune of coming face-to-face with the Archduke yet again, he pounced. And this time, he didn’t miss.^[5]

5 Which Eleanor Was It?

The year was 1957, and a very young Paul McCartney had just met a very young John Lennon at a party at a place called St. Peter’s Church in Woolton, England. It was, of course, a meeting that would become one of the most important moments in the history of modern music, considering the duo would soon thereafter form the Beatles. But that’s not the coincidence here.

The coincidence is that literally a few feet away from where John and Paul met that day, in the church graveyard, was a very prominent gravestone for a woman long ago dead named Eleanor Rigby. Does that name sound familiar to you yet?

Fast forward nine years, and Paul wrote the iconic Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby” for the whole world to hear. After writing it, he explained that he’d thought up the character in honor of the actress Eleanor Bron and a store in the Bristol area named Rigby & Evens. Yeah, maybe, or maybe not.

Years later, Paul admitted that the “Eleanor Rigby” gravestone in that Woolton church probably played at least a subliminal role in him putting together the iconic song’s namesake. Funny how our minds can dig up things from the long-ago past and recall them in totally unexpected ways like that, isn’t it?^[6]

4 Double Take

In 1900, King Umberto I of Italy went to a restaurant to eat. There, he was shocked to discover that the man who owned the place looked exactly like His Royal Highness. Surely, you’ve heard of the word “doppelganger.” But this was more than just a passing (or even strong) resemblance—this was a situation in which two total strangers were truly identical.

They’d never met or known of each other before, but that didn’t matter because they legitimately looked like they could have been the same person. And not only that, but the two had a couple other absolutely insane similarities ongoing, too.

For one, the pair of men were both born on the same day and in the same town. (Yes, really.) Furthermore, they had both married women named Margherita, and both of them had sons named Vittorio. And after their meeting, things ended identically (and tragically, too).

On July 29, 1900, the restaurant owner was killed in an accidental shooting. A few hours later, on that same day, King Umberto was assassinated by an anarchist. We just got chills.^[7]

3 Hi, Jim. I’m Jim!

In 1979, a pair of long-ago-estranged twins were reunited. They were 39 years old when they found each other and reconnected; they hadn’t seen each other for nearly all 39 of those long, uncertain years. They had been separated from each other when they were just four weeks old, so they obviously didn’t remember each other.

They were both adopted out to separate families, too, so they had no connection or no knowledge of where the other one had gone or what they were doing with their lives. But when they reunited, they learned some incredible things about each other.

For one, both boys had been named Jim by their adoptive parents. And, sure, we get it—Jim is a pretty common name, so maybe that isn’t too coincidental. But what about this: They each adored both math and carpentry as hobbies. They each pursued careers in security when it came time to clock in for work.

In addition, they each married a woman named Linda, divorced her, and then married a second woman named Betty. Oh, and that’s not all, either: One of the Jims had named his son James Allan, while the other named his son James Alan. How eerie is that?^[8]

2 Written in the Stars

It’s well-known by now that Halley’s Comet flies past the Earth every 76 years, at which point it becomes visible to the naked eye. But what is less well-known is that Mark Twain was born and later died within 24 hours of its passing across our skies—76 years apart.

It all started in 1835 when he was born Samuel Clemens as Halley’s Comet flew above his head. He then did what he did for the next 76 years of his impactful life, only to go out exactly the same way as he came into the world—with the comet flying overhead. He predicted it, too.

In 1909, one year before his death and sensing that everything was quickly coming to an end, Twain was quoted by the New York Times as saying that he thought he’d go out again with Halley’s Comet just like he’d arrived. “The Almighty has said, no doubt, ‘Now here are these two unaccountable freaks; they came in together, they must go out together,” he stated, according to that paper.

And sure enough, he did. A year later, in 1910, he died less than 24 hours after the comet made its closest approach to the United States.^[9]

9 Two Bombs? No Problem!

God forbid somebody drops a nuclear weapon on the world in the modern era… although in this day and age, you never know what might happen. But if they did, rest assured, we wouldn’t want to be anywhere close to the blast point. No, thank you. But in the 20th century, there was one man who survived not only one atomic bomb drop—but two.

As we all very well know, in 1945, the United States detonated two nuclear bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bombs effectively ended World War II, and between the blasts themselves and the radiation that occurred afterward, they killed nearly 100,000 people. But they couldn’t kill Tsutomu Yamaguchi.

Yamaguchi was a Japanese businessman who was in Hiroshima on a business trip on the day that the first atomic bomb dropped. He was blown over by the power of the blast, but he wasn’t seriously injured. So he got up and did his best to go about his day from there. And then, three days later, it happened again. He’d returned back home to Nagasaki just in time to experience the second atomic bomb drop.

Incredibly, he survived that one, too. And even more incredibly, he lived to the ripe old age of 93. Radiation exposure didn’t claim him! Or at least it took a very, very long time to claim him since he eventually died of stomach cancer.^[10]