25 Kickass and Amazing Coincidences in History – Part 2

Here is Part 2 of 25 Kickass and Amazing Coincidences in History. For part 1, click here.

1-5 Amazing Coincidences in History

1. In Monza, Italy, King Umberto I, went to a small restaurant for dinner, accompanied by his aide-de-camp, General Emilio Ponzia-Vaglia. When the owner took King Umberto’s order, the King noticed that he and the restaurant owner were virtual doubles, in face and in build. Both men began discussing the striking resemblances between each other and found many more similarities. Both men were born on the same day, of the same year, (March 14th, 1844). Both men had been born in the same town. Both men married a woman with same name, Margherita. The restaurateur opened his restaurant on the same day that King Umberto was crowned King of Italy. On the 29th July 1900, King Umberto was informed that the restaurateur had died that day in a shooting accident, and as he expressed his regret, he was then assassinated by an anarchist in the crowd. – Source

2. Twice in seven years (1274 and 1281), the Mongols under the leadership of Kublai Khan could have almost certainly conquered Japan, but each time the invading fleet was turned back by a typhoon. – Source

3. A warlord and nobleman who controlled a vast swath of Asia during the 14th century, Timur (aka Tamerlane) was renowned as a military tactician whose warfare killed some 17 million people. He was also a celebrated patron of architecture and the arts, however. In 1941, Joseph Stalin sent a team of archaeologists to open Timur’s tomb in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, much to the alarm of local residents and Muslim clergy. Upon opening Timur’s coffin, the team discovered an inscription: “Whoever opens my tomb shall unleash an invader more terrible than I.” Within a matter of hours, Adolf Hitler’s troops invaded Russia; an estimated 26 million people died as a result. In 1942, Stalin ordered Timur’s remains to be reinterred back in Samarkand in accordance with Islamic tradition; shortly thereafter, the German army surrendered at Stalingrad, ending their campaign against the Russians. – Source

4. In their exploration of the Western United States in 1804, Lewis and Clark were using Sacagawea as an interpreter with the native people as they traveled west. Before they crossed the Rocky Mountains, they had to secure horses for their journey across in order to survive. The local Indian tribe didn’t trust Lewis and Clark and believed they might be a war party. As Sacagawea was interpreting and talking with the Indian chief and getting nowhere, she suddenly realized that the chief is actually her long lost brother and breaks down hysterical crying. She was taken as a slave from a neighboring tribe at a very young age. It completely changed the direction of the talks and Lewis and Clark’s party of 40 people got their horses. – Source

5. The sun and moon appear to be of same size because of an astonishing coincidence. The moon is 400 times smaller but 400 times closer, which makes the eclipses possible. Also, complete eclipses won’t be possible forever as the moon is slowly drifting away from Earth. – Source

6-10 Amazing Coincidences in History

6. Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy was elected to Congress in 1946. Abraham Lincoln was elected President in 1860. John F. Kennedy was elected President in 1960. The names Lincoln and Kennedy each contain seven letters. Both were particularly concerned with civil rights. Both wives lost their children while living in the White House. Both were shot in the head. Kennedy’s secretary was named Lincoln. Both were succeeded by Southerners. Both successors were named Johnson. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Lincoln, was born in 1808. Lyndon Johnson, who succeeded Kennedy, was born in 1908. Both of their assassins were known by three names. Both names are comprised of fifteen letters. Booth ran from the theater and was caught in a warehouse. Oswald ran from a warehouse and was caught in a theater. Booth and Oswald were assassinated before their trials. – Source

7. In 1835 an unemployed house painter named Richard Lawrence tried to assassinate then President of the USA Andrew Jackson. He produced a pistol and fired at Jackson, but the gun did not go off. A scuffle ensued, with the 67-year-old Jackson beating the offender with his walking cane. Lawrence then pulled out a second pistol and fired, but this gun also did not go off and bystanders wrestled him to the ground. Both guns were later test fired successfully on the first try and appeared to be in fine working condition. – Source

8. When a Nebraska church exploded in 1950, not one of the fifteen people who were supposed to be there for choir practice was injured because every member of the choir was late arriving for practice that evening and everyone had their own reason to not be there. – Source

9. Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of Abraham Lincoln, was obviously with his father when he passed away. But he also, coincidentally enough, was an eyewitness to the assassination of President James. A Garfield in 1881. He was Garfield’s Secretary of War. About 20 years later, in 1901, Robert Todd Lincoln was at the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York, at the invitation of then President William McKinley and William McKinley was assassinated that day. After this event, Robert Todd Lincoln turned down any future invitations by Presidents to events, fearing that his association led to their deaths. – Source

10. J.J. Thomson won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1906) for showing that the electron is a particle. His son, George Paget Thomson, won the Nobel Prize in Physics (1937) for showing that the electron is a wave. – Source

11-15 Amazing Coincidences in History

11. Frane Selak, a Croatian music teacher, began his unlucky streak in 1962 on a train going from Sarajevo to Dubrovnik. The train inexplicably jumped the tracks and fell into an icy river killing 17 passengers. He managed to swim to shore suffering from hypothermia and a broken arm. A year later, while on an airplane, its door flew off and he was sucked out of the airplane. The plane crashed and he woke up in a hospital. He was found in a haystack. In 1966, he was on a bus that went off the road and into a river. Four people were killed, but he suffered minor injuries. In 1970, his car caught on fire and he stopped it and got out just before the whole car blew up. In 1973, Selak was driving another car when a faulty fuel line sprayed gas all over the engine and flames blew through his air vents. His only injury was loss of most of his hair. In 1995 he was hit by a bus, but only sustained minor injuries. Finally, in 1996, he was driving on a mountain road when he went around a bend and saw a truck coming right at him. He ran his car through a guardrail and jumped out to watch his car blow up 300 feet below him. In 2003, Selak bought a lottery ticket for the first time in 40 years at the age of 74 and ended up winning $1 million. – Source

12. During the Cold War, Russian spies used hollow coins to pass messages to each other in America. One spy accidentally used his hollow coin as actual currency, and it ended up in the general population. The coin was found when it was given to a paperboy, who discovered the message in the hollowed out container when he dropped it and it split open. There was a message written in Russian code, so the boy handed it over to the authorities. The government spent years trying to decode the message, with no luck. Eventually, a Russian spy named Reino Hayhanen defected to America, and in the process of handing over Russian secrets, the spy was asked about the coded message in the hollow coin. The man translated the message, and it turned out to be a “Welcome to America, here’s the way our operations work” message from Russia. The coin was in fact meant for the very spy who decoded the message for the American government. – Source

13. The direct cause of World War 1 was Archduke Ferdinand of Austria’s assassination. What many people don’t know is that the initial assassination attempt failed when the bomb blew up the car behind Ferdinand’s. The only reason he was assassinated is because one of the terrorists (a Serbian organization called the Black Hand) stopped to buy a sandwich and saw Ferdinand in the store. – Source

14. The developers of the 2000 video game Deus Ex left the Twin Towers out of the New York skyline in game due to texture memory limitations. The developers justified that the towers were destroyed by terrorists early on in the game’s storyline. – Source

15. Someone edited professional wrestler Chris Benoit’s Wikipedia page to include the death of his wife 14 hours before police discovered her body. It turned out an internet troll had edited the page just for fun. – Source

16-20 Amazing Coincidences in History

16. Anne Hathaway’s husband Adam Shulman has an uncanny resemblance to William Shakespeare. William Shakespeare had a wife called Anne Hathaway. – Source

17. “Eleanor Rigby” was released by The Beatles on August 5, 1966. McCartney in an interview said that he originally came up with the idea of “Father McCartney” but figured it was inappropriate to use his dad’s name, so looked in the phone book and found “McKenzie.” Ultimately, the name “Father McKenzie” was used in the song’s lyrics. McCartney came up with the name “Eleanor” from actress Eleanor Bron and “Rigby” from a store in Bristol named Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers. In the 1980s, a grave was discovered in St. Peter’s Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, with the name Eleanor Rigby on it. A few yards from Eleanor’s grave is another tombstone with the last name “McKenzie” on it. The cemetery is located near the spot where Lennon and McCartney first met, and the two spent a lot of time in the cemetery sunbathing as teenagers. – Source

18. In the entire state of Ohio in 1895, there were only two cars on the road, and the drivers of these two cars crashed into each other. – Source

19. During an August 17, 1957 game, Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Richie Ashburn hit a foul ball into the stands that struck spectator Alice Roth, wife of Philadelphia Bulletin sports editor, Earl Roth, breaking her nose. When play resumed Ashburn fouled off another ball that struck her while she was being carried off in a stretcher. – Source

20. A blurry photo of a man stealing a wallet in a store ran on the bottom of the front page of the December 14, 2007, edition of Idaho’s Lewiston Tribune. Above it was an unrelated photo of a man painting a business. Readers noticed both men were wearing the same clothes and could be the same man and he was, leading to his arrest. – Source

21-25 Amazing Coincidences in History

21. British actor Anthony Hopkins (who shot to fame as Hannibal Lecter) was delighted to hear that he had landed a leading role in a film based on the book The Girl From Petrovka by George Feifer. A few days after signing the contract, Hopkins travelled to London to buy a copy of the book. He tried several bookshops, but there wasn’t one to be had. Waiting at Leicester Square underground for his train home, he noticed a book apparently discarded on a bench. Incredibly, it was The Girl From Petrovka. Now, this was merely the beginning of an extraordinary chain of events. Two years later, in the middle of filming in Vienna, Hopkins was visited by George Feifer, the author. Feifer mentioned that he did not have a copy of his own book. He had lent the last one containing his own annotations to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. With mounting astonishment, Hopkins handed Feifer the book he had found. ‘Is this the one?’ he asked, ‘with the notes scribbled in the margins?’ It was the same book. – Source

22. On the Christmas Eve 1994, two cars collided near Flitcham, England. The drivers were twin sisters who were delivering presents to each other. Their names were Lorraine and Lavinia Christmas. – Source

23. On June 6, 2009, two men in China picked the same winning seven-digit lottery number. Though they were hundreds of miles away from each other, they bought their tickets at the exact same time, down to the second.

24. In July 1975, Erskine Lawrence Ebbin was knocked off his moped and killed by a taxi in Hamilton, Bermuda. It was the same taxi with the same driver, carrying the same passenger, that had killed his brother Neville in July the previous year. Both brothers were 17 when they died, and had been riding the same moped in the same street. – Source

25. An Australian guy named Bill Morgan was declared dead for 14 minutes and lived unscathed. To celebrate his survival, he bought a scratch card and won a $27,000 car. The news reporter asked him to reenact the scratch card moment to capture it on camera, so he bought another card and won a $250,000 jackpot in it. – Source