by Unsinkable predictions, perfect eclipses, and a prophetic license plate: here are history’s greatest coincidences.
The Dennis the Menace Twins
In March 1951, former Disney animator Hank Ketchum created a new comic strip. Called ‘Dennis the Menace’, it chronicled the adventures of the titular character, a young boy with a sense of mischief.
The strip was initially published in 16 newspapers in the western United States, and quickly found an audience. But it was not the only ‘Dennis’ making its debut.
The same year, in England, cartoonist Dennis Law also launched a new strip called… ‘Dennis the Menace’. First published in the iconic British comic ‘Beano’, this Dennis was also a young boy with a sense of mischief.
Without any contact with each other, both illustrators had come up with the same idea, given it the same name, and launched it at the same time. The comics were even first published on exactly the same day: March 12, 1951.
While there were differences between the two – the characters looked dissimilar, and the British version was darker, with Dennis constantly in trouble with the police – the similarities were remarkable.
Both strips would also find enduring success, with decades long print runs, and successful spinoffs in other mediums. Both are still published to this day.
Wilmer McLean Starts and Ends the Civil War
Wilmer McLean (pictured above) was an American farmer, who purchased a property near Manassas, in northern Virginia, in 1854. His holding was unremarkable: rolling farmland, split by a small creek called Bull Run.
Seven years later, when the American Civil War erupted, McLean’s property suddenly took on strategic significance: it sat on a straight line separating the two rival capitals, Washington and Richmond.
Pressed by President Lincoln, the Union army initially tried a direct attack on Richmond; they were halted at Bull Run by Confederate forces under the command of P.G.T. Beauregard. Beauregard had taken Wilmer’s house as his headquarters; a cannon ball famously burst through the wall and interrupted his dinner as the fighting began.
This was the first proper battle of the war; known as the First Battle of Bull Run it ended in Confederate victory, with Beauregard’s troops holding off the Union Army.
A second battle would be fought at the same location the following year, after which McLean decided to move his family to a safer location. He would relocate 100 miles south, far from what had been the front line.
The Civil War would rage for four years, with much bloody fighting, and fluctuating fortunes for both sides. Eventually, the North’s superiority in economic and military resources began to tell, and they forced the South towards collapse.
The last major battle of the war was fought in April, 1865, in Virginia’s Appomattox County. With the Confederate Army outnumbered and running out of supplies, southern commander Robert E. Lee searched for a place to surrender.
He settled on a well-appointed local residence known as the Appomattox Court House. The owner: Wilmer McLean.
Lee surrendered to General Ulysses S. Grant in Wilmer’s house on April 9, 1865, essentially ending the war. It is said that the Civil War started in Wilmer’s kitchen, and ended in his parlour.
Saving a Son, Killing a Father
Another strange coincidence linked to the American Civil War involved Robert Lincoln (pictured above), son of American President Abraham.
The year before the war ended, 1864, Robert was waiting to board a train in Jersey City, bound for Washington, when he slipped and fell into the gap between the train and the platform. The train then began to move, leaving Robert in danger of being crushed.
At the last moment, an alert passenger saw the what had happened and rescued Robert; grabbing him by his coat, he hoisted him back onto the platform, saving his life.
The rescuer was Edwin Booth, a prominent stage actor.
‘I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.’
– Robert Lincoln, in a letter to Richard Watson Gilder
A year later, 15 April 1865, and with the war ended, President Lincoln set out to enjoy an evening at Ford’s Theatre. During a performance of ‘Our American Cousin’, he was shot and killed by a radical southern sympathiser; the assassin was John Wilkes Booth, Edwin’s brother.
After a massive manhunt, John Wilkes Booth was run to ground and shot by the authorities on April 26.
The strange connection between Robert’s rescuer and the President’s killer was soon discovered, and was much discussed in the press. While both actors, the two Booths were estranged, having fallen out over the war; Edwin was a staunch Unionist.
Out of respect for the President’s family, after the assassination Edwin Booth went into temporary retirement. He would later return to the stage to great acclaim.
The Novel That Predicted the Titanic
Morgan Robertson was an American writer with a love of the sea. He began his career as a 15 year old cabin boy, in 1876, and worked as a merchant seaman for more than 20 years.
During this time he began writing, and had several short stories published.
In 1898, Robertson wrote a full-length novel: ‘Futility, or The Wreck of the Titan’. The story concerned a British cruise liner called ‘Titan’, the largest yet built, that had a new type of hull meant to make it unsinkable.
But on its maiden voyage from England to America, the Titan hits an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sinks, with massive loss of life. The ship’s highly touted safety features had led to it embarking with a shortage of lifeboats.
The book was a modest success on release, and Robertson turned to writing full time.
On 10 April 1912, a real life ship, RMS Titanic, set sail on its maiden voyage from Southampton to New York. At the time it was not only the largest passenger ship in the world, but the largest ship of any kind, ever built.
The Titanic had a new type of hull, featuring separate watertight compartments, that was promoted as making it, ‘practically unsinkable’. With this in mind, and to leave the decks less cluttered, it embarked with fewer lifeboats than was usual.
As every student of history, and cinema, knows: disaster followed. On the night of 14 April, the Titanic struck a massive iceberg in the North Atlantic, and sunk within two hours, taking two thirds of its passengers and crew down with her.
In the aftermath of the catastrophe, the parallels with Robertson’s novel were much discussed: the ship’s size, the new type of hull, the shortage of lifeboats, and its fate, sinking on its maiden voyage after hitting an iceberg, were eerily similar between both novel and real life. Robertson had even given his fictional ship a remarkably similar name.
There were public claims that he was a time traveler, or had clairvoyant abilities. Dismissing these, Robertson said that his book was simply based on his experiences at sea, and that ‘he knew what he was talking about’.
The Unsinkable Violet Jessop
The Titanic had two sister ships, built in the same yard: the RMS Olympic, and the HMHS Britannic. These would both be involved in their own aquatic disasters.
The Olympic was another cruise liner, with the same dimensions as Titanic but slightly less tonnage. In September 1911, the ship was sailing through the Solent, the straight that separates England from the Isle of Wight, when it collided with a warship, the HMS Hawke.
With two holes punched in its side, the Britannic sunk lower in the water, but its watertight compartments held and it did not sink. It was able to limp back to port and was repaired; it returned to service and remained in operation until 1935.
The Britannic had been built as a cruise liner, but it was completed just prior to World War I and was shortly pressed into military service. Used by the British Navy as a hospital ship, it became the world’s largest military vessel.
In 1915 it was moved to the Mediterranean, and used to treat the wounded from the Dardanelles campaign.
In November 1916, the Britannic hit a German mine near the Greek island of Kea and sank in less than an hour. Remarkably, only 30 people were killed; more than 1 000 wounded and crew were rescued from the water.
While three sister ships being involved in individual disasters is a coincidence in itself, there is a deeper one: one woman, Violet Constance Jessop, was on board all three.
Jessop was an employee of White Star, the operator of the Titanic and Olympic, and was working on both vessels as a steward when they foundered. She was on board the Olympic when it struggled back to port, and was one of the lucky survivors of the Titanic, who made it onto a life boat and was later picked up.
When the first World War began, Jessop enlisted and served as a nurse. She was stationed on board the Britannic when it hit the mine and sunk, and was subsequently rescued.
After the war, Jessop returned to her job at White Star. She worked on passenger liners all over the world, until her retirement in 1950.
Franz Ferdinand’s Prophetic License Plate
It is one of the most pivotal moments in modern history: June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand (pictured above), heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, tours Sarajevo in the back of an automobile. Waiting for him among the crowd are members of ‘Black Hand’, an extremist group of Bosnian nationalists.
The Black Hand were one of several groups agitating for independence for Bosnia and Herzegovina; at the time they were part of Austria-Hungary, which operated as a federated monarchy.
At 10.45am, the Archduke’s car took a wrong turn, and halted to turn around. Seizing the moment, one of the agitators, Gavrilo Princip, sprung from the crowd and shot Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in the chest, fatally wounding them both.
The long-term impact of this event was pronounced; Ferdinand’s death would trigger a chain reaction of events, which would lead to the First World War.
Outraged by the assassination, Austria-Hungary threatened to occupy Serbia, who it accused of sheltering the Black Hand and other extremists. Serbia refuted the claims, and turned to its ally, Russia, for support.
Russia was then part of a military alliance with France and Britain, guaranteeing mutual military aid; Germany had a similar pact with Austria-Hungary. None of the parties were willing to back down: Austria-Hungary invaded Serbia in July, just one month after the assassination, and a full European war then broke out.
The war was long and bloody; it would last for 4 years, at the cost of 20 million lives. The conflict ended in defeat for Germany and Austria-Hungary, with an armistice signed 11 November 1918.
The coincidence? The license plate on Franz Ferdinand’s car, on the fateful day of his death, read 11 11 18. There’s even an ‘A’ for armistice.
The Unlikely Perfection of Total Eclipses
Total solar eclipses are one of the most striking of all natural phenomena: at certain times, as viewed from Earth, the moon perfectly covers the disk of the sun, revealing its fiery corona. Total eclipses have been observed and recorded by humans, for many thousand of years (read about the first recorded eclipse, here).
That this happens is due to an unlikely series of coincidences.
The moon is about 400 times smaller than the sun, but is also 400 times closer to us, meaning both objects have the same relative size when viewed from earth. This combination of factors is thought to be highly uncommon; there are hundreds of other moons in our solar system, none of them are close to the correct ratio to produce total eclipses.
Part of this is due to the size of our moon; it is one of the largest moons in the solar system, and the closest in size to its associated planet by some margin.
A second coincidence arrives when you consider that the moon’s position relative to the earth is not fixed. It is slowly moving away from us, meaning that the era of total eclipses is finite.
A hundred million years ago, the moon would have been too close to earth to produce the eclipses we are familiar with; the moon would have covered the sun, including its corona, completely. And in 50 million years it will be too far away, meaning part of the sun will still be visible.
This only leaves a band, tens of millions of years wide, where total eclipses are possible. In the 4.6 billion year history of the Earth, this time period is extremely narrow.
By coincidence, the small time span for total eclipses has perfectly aligned with the arrival of the species best able to appreciate them: us.
