Coincidence? I Think Not! 12 Bizarre Historical Twists

0:00 Speaker 1: Hey, hey, curious minds, Welcome back to the Strange History Podcast.

0:04 Speaker 1: I'm your host, Amy, and today we're diving headfirst into

0:08 Speaker 1: the weirdest corners of history. And not just any history.

0:11 Speaker 1: I'm talking the wait, what kind the ones that make

0:15 Speaker 1: you go that can't be real but somehow totally are.

0:21 Speaker 1: If you're new here, welcome, You're in for a ride.

0:24 Speaker 1: And if you're a returning listener, Hi again, you little weirdo.

0:28 Speaker 1: And I mean that lovingly. You know we love a

0:30 Speaker 1: good mystery around here. Today's episode it's all about historical

0:35 Speaker 1: coincidences that are so bananas they'll make you question whether

0:38 Speaker 1: reality is glitching. So go ahead, grab your drink, pet

0:43 Speaker 1: your cat, put your phone on silent, and let's get

0:46 Speaker 1: into twelve truly bizarre moments in history that are just

0:50 Speaker 1: way too perfectly weird.

0:52 Speaker 2: Hey, Strange history lovers, my name is Dan and I

0:56 Speaker 2: will be doing a bit of narration on the podcast.

0:59 Speaker 2: Amy is paying me in homemade baked goods. No judging please.

1:04 Speaker 2: The Hoover Dam's spooky symmetry.

1:07 Speaker 1: Okay, this one gave me chills. When they started building

1:11 Speaker 1: the Hoover Dam back in the early nineteen twenties, The

1:14 Speaker 1: very first death on the site was a guy named J. G. Tierney.

1:18 Speaker 1: Poor guy drowned on December twentieth, nineteen twenty two. Now

1:23 Speaker 1: fast forward thirteen years to the day, December twentieth, nineteen

1:27 Speaker 1: thirty five. The last person to die during construction Patrick Tierney,

1:33 Speaker 1: his son, same date, thirteen years apart. Both father and

1:38 Speaker 1: son died working on the same project. That's not just tragic,

1:42 Speaker 1: that's horror movie level timing, like the dam was keeping

1:45 Speaker 1: score or something.

1:47 Speaker 2: The most synchronized twins ever.

1:50 Speaker 1: So in Ohio, two identical twin boys were adopted by

1:54 Speaker 1: different families after being separated at birth. Neither family knew

1:58 Speaker 1: about the other. But here's where it gets into the

2:01 Speaker 1: twilight zone. Both adoptive families named their sons James. One

2:06 Speaker 1: became a security guard, the other a deputy sheriff, so

2:10 Speaker 1: kind of the same vibe. Both married women named Linda,

2:13 Speaker 1: then both got divorced. Then both married women named Betty

2:18 Speaker 1: like really Betty. Each had a son named James Allen.

2:23 Speaker 1: They drove the same Chevy automobile, smoked the same brand

2:27 Speaker 1: of cigarettes, and vacationed at the same beach in Florida.

2:31 Speaker 1: They didn't meet until they were thirty nine at that point.

2:34 Speaker 1: It's not even coincidence. It's just fate doing a weird flex.

2:38 Speaker 2: The bullet with a personal vendetta.

2:41 Speaker 1: Henry Ziegland, a man in Texas in the late eighteen hundreds,

2:44 Speaker 1: breaks up with his girlfriend. She's heartbroken and sadly ends

2:48 Speaker 1: her life. Her brother, understandably furious, tries to shoot Henry.

2:54 Speaker 1: He fires the shot but misses. The bullet lodges in

2:57 Speaker 1: a tree behind Henry, so Henry lives. Years later. Henry's like,

3:03 Speaker 1: I want this tree gone, and he doesn't just chop

3:05 Speaker 1: it down. He uses dynamite as one does. The explosion

3:10 Speaker 1: sends the exact same bullet flying, and it hits Henry

3:13 Speaker 1: in the head. That time it doesn't miss. That's not

3:16 Speaker 1: just karma. That's karma with a sniper rifle and a

3:19 Speaker 1: long attention span.

3:21 Speaker 2: Lincoln and Kennedy history's favorite echo.

3:25 Speaker 1: You've probably heard this one, but it never gets old.

3:28 Speaker 1: The Lincoln Kennedy coincidences are chef's kiss weird. Lincoln was

3:32 Speaker 1: elected in eighteen sixty, Kennedy he was elected in nineteen sixty.

3:38 Speaker 1: Lincoln's VP and eventual successor was Andrew Johnson, and he

3:42 Speaker 1: was born in eighteen oh eight. Kennedy's VP and successor,

3:47 Speaker 1: Lyndon B. Johnson, born in nineteen oh eight. Both were

3:50 Speaker 1: assassinated on a Friday, both shot in the head. Both

3:54 Speaker 1: killers had three names fifteen letters. John Wilkes Booth, Lee

4:00 Speaker 1: Harvey Oswald. Booth shot Lincoln in a theater and fled

4:03 Speaker 1: to a warehouse. Oswald shot Kennedy from a warehouse and

4:07 Speaker 1: fled to a theater. It's like history just hit copy paste,

4:11 Speaker 1: changed a few names, and called it a sequel.

4:15 Speaker 2: The book that predicted the Titanic.

4:18 Speaker 1: In eighteen ninety eight, author Morgan Robertson writes a novella

4:22 Speaker 1: called Futility. It's about a massive ocean liner called the

4:26 Speaker 1: titan Yeah, not the Titanic, but close that was considered unsinkable.

4:32 Speaker 1: Guess what happens. Yep, it hits an iceberg in April

4:36 Speaker 1: and sinks. Fourteen years later, the Titanic sets sail. It's huge,

4:41 Speaker 1: it's unsinkable, it doesn't have enough lifeboats. But wait, the

4:45 Speaker 1: ship hits an iceberg in April, and yep, it goes down,

4:49 Speaker 1: sinks like a stone. Robertson's swore it was just imagination,

4:54 Speaker 1: but man that is some suspiciously specific fiction.

4:59 Speaker 2: The baby dry Yes, I said, Baby Dropper.

5:02 Speaker 1: Detroit, nineteen thirties. A guy named Joseph Figlock, real person,

5:09 Speaker 1: not a cartoon character, is sweeping an alley when a

5:11 Speaker 1: baby falls out of a fourth story window lands right

5:15 Speaker 1: on him. Both survive, thankfully, and then get this. A

5:19 Speaker 1: year later, in the same alley, another baby falls out

5:23 Speaker 1: of a window onto Joseph Figlock again, and they both

5:28 Speaker 1: survive again. I don't know what's more surprising that he

5:32 Speaker 1: survived two surprise babies or that babies in the nineteen

5:36 Speaker 1: thirties were just casually falling out of windows.

5:39 Speaker 2: One tree, two wars, same family.

5:43 Speaker 1: During World War One, a British soldier narrowly avoids death

5:46 Speaker 1: when a dudshell smacks into a tree instead of well him.

5:51 Speaker 1: He's so grateful to the tree he carves his name

5:53 Speaker 1: into the bark. Fast forward to World War Two. His son,

5:57 Speaker 1: also a soldier, finds shelter behind that same tree. He

6:01 Speaker 1: sees the carving and oh my gosh, he finds his

6:04 Speaker 1: dad's name. It's like the tree was like, Hey, I

6:08 Speaker 1: got you, guys, generational trauma. I am your leafy therapist.

6:13 Speaker 2: Frane Selac literally too lucky to die.

6:18 Speaker 1: Fraine Celac, a Croatian music teacher, might be the luckiest

6:22 Speaker 1: or most targeted by fate. Man alive, he survives a

6:26 Speaker 1: train crash that kills seventeen. A year later, he's ejected

6:30 Speaker 1: from a crashing airplane and lands safely in a haystack.

6:34 Speaker 1: Then he survives a bus crash two separate car explosions,

6:38 Speaker 1: gets hit by a bus again, nearly gets hit by

6:41 Speaker 1: a truck, and then, as if the universe was like okay, okay,

6:46 Speaker 1: we get it, he wins the lottery. Like this man

6:49 Speaker 1: didn't just dodge death, he sprinted past it and flipped

6:52 Speaker 1: it the bird.

6:54 Speaker 2: Edgar Allan Poe time traveler.

6:57 Speaker 1: In eighteen thirty eight, Poe writes a novel called The

7:00 Speaker 1: Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pim. It includes a shipwreck, a

7:04 Speaker 1: group of survivors, and a guy named Richard Parker who

7:07 Speaker 1: gets eaten fictional story. Then, in eighteen eighty four, the

7:12 Speaker 1: real life yacht Mignonette sinks. The survivors you guessed it,

7:17 Speaker 1: end up eating the cabin boy. His name, Richard freaking Parker.

7:23 Speaker 1: Like what kind of psychic seafood nightmare did Poe tap into.

7:28 Speaker 2: That one taxi in Bermuda.

7:31 Speaker 1: The scene is set in Bermuda. A guy on a

7:34 Speaker 1: moped is hit by a taxi dies tragically. One year later,

7:40 Speaker 1: his brother, riding the same moped down the same street,

7:43 Speaker 1: is hit by the same taxi driven by the same

7:46 Speaker 1: driver carrying the same passenger. At that point, that moped

7:51 Speaker 1: needs to be exercised or just thrown into the ocean.

7:55 Speaker 2: Founding Fathers sink up one last time.

8:00 Speaker 1: Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were like that odd couple

8:04 Speaker 1: who went from bestie's to rivals and back to bros.

8:08 Speaker 1: They both played massive roles in founding the US, both

8:11 Speaker 1: served as president, both retired around the same time, and

8:15 Speaker 1: then on July fourth, eighteen twenty six, the fiftieth anniversary

8:20 Speaker 1: of the Declaration of Independence, they both died hours apart.

8:26 Speaker 1: Adam's last words were supposedly Thomas Jefferson survives, except Jefferson

8:33 Speaker 1: had actually died a few hours earlier. It's like they

8:36 Speaker 1: planned one last synchronized mic drop Founding Fathers, but make

8:41 Speaker 1: it dramatic civil war.

8:44 Speaker 2: The house it wouldn't leave alone.

8:46 Speaker 1: Wilma McLain just wanted some peace in quiet in eighteen

8:50 Speaker 1: sixty one, the First Battle of bull Run literally exploded

8:54 Speaker 1: in his front yard. Cannonballs, chaos, the works. So he

8:58 Speaker 1: moves away all the way to Appomattox, Virginia. Nice quiet

9:02 Speaker 1: town until four years later when General Robert E. Lee

9:06 Speaker 1: surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant in yep, McLean's living room.

9:11 Speaker 1: The war started in his front yard and ended in

9:14 Speaker 1: his parlor. His exact words, the.

9:17 Speaker 2: War began in my front yard and ended in my

9:19 Speaker 2: front parlor.

9:21 Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that man just could not escape

9:23 Speaker 1: the plot. So there you go. Twelve times the universe

9:27 Speaker 1: decided to be extra weird. Whether it's a psychic poet,

9:31 Speaker 1: a bullet with a memory, or the founding Fathers doing

9:34 Speaker 1: one last patriotic high five from beyond the grave. History

9:38 Speaker 1: has a wild sense of humor. If you had fun today,

9:42 Speaker 1: don't forget to follow. Leave a little love in the reviews,

9:45 Speaker 1: or send this to your friend who always dominates trivia night.

9:49 Speaker 1: Got a strange history nugget of your own, Slide into

9:52 Speaker 1: my inbox. You might just hear it on a future episode.

9:55 Speaker 2: Until next time, Stay curious, stay weird, and remember sometimes

10:01 Speaker 2: the past is stranger than fiction, and occasionally it drops

10:06 Speaker 2: a baby on your head. And now I am off

10:09 Speaker 2: to collect my baked bribery goods that Amy baked. It's

10:13 Speaker 2: the only way I would do this. We are friends,

10:16 Speaker 2: but not that good of friends. Just sayin