King Umberto I and His Doppelganger
One of the most bizarre stories of coincidences in history is the uncanny tale of King Umberto I of Italy and the mysterious man he met in a small Italian restaurant. One day, in 1900, Umberto visited a restaurant in Monza, Italy, where he noticed that the restaurant owner, not only looked like him but also had the same birthday.
The Mysterious Similarities
Furthermore, both of them got married on the same day to women with the same names. If that isn’t strange enough, the restaurant opened on the same day Umberto was crowned King. Coincidence seems to know no bounds as the restaurant owner himself became the victim of a fatal accident on July 29, 1900, which is the very same day the King was assassinated.
The Twin Tragedy
Brothers find connections with each other due to their genetic similarities, but the story of the brothers in Finland’s tale isn’t just a usual one. Their lives ended in an eerily similar fashion despite living apart.
A Fatal Accident and a Unbelievable Repeat
In 2002, a man was killed while riding his bike along a road in Raahe, Finland. What makes his death particularly chilling is that he died exactly one year after his twin brother died in…the exact same way. Both of them were 70 years old and died on the same road, only 1.5 km apart. The twist about their demise? The police officer who reported the second accident described it as a “freak accident.” A misunderstood coincidence or a bisected destiny – one will never know.
The Bookstore Boom
An Explosive Prediction
Morgan Robertson’s novella Futility was initially disregarded until the Titanic sank. It narrates the tale of an unsinkable ship – ‘Titan,’ colliding with an iceberg and sinking. This was echoed in the tragedy that occurred 14 years later where the ‘Titanic’ followed the same storyline. The similarities didn’t stop there; both vessels were similar in length, were considered unsinkable, lacked lifeboats, and had similar passenger counts and casualty numbers.
The Destined Survivors
Surviving one ship wreck might sound miraculous, but surviving two? This is where it becomes an eerie coincidence, as it was the case for Violet Jessop.
Three Ships, One Survivor
Violet Jessop, a stewardess and nurse, survived three shipwrecks in her lifetime, all of which involved the sister ships of the White Star Line; Titanic, Britannic, and the Olympic. She was on board the Olympic when it collided with a naval ship in 1911 but managed to escape unharmed. A year later, she boarded the ‘unsinkable’ Titanic, surviving the infamous iceberg collision by boarding a lifeboat. Four years later, she survived yet another disaster when the Britannic hit a sea mine and sank. Violet firmly stood by the adage, ‘third time’s the charm’, because she survived each accident and lived to the ripe old age of 83.
License Plate Prophecy
The infamous ‘Archduke Franz Ferdinand’ is known more for his assassination, which led to the First World War than for his position or power.
A Fatal Prophecy
On June 28, 1914, Ferdinand was assassinated in his car but the bizarre coincidence lies not in the assassination but in the license plate of the vehicle. The plate read ‘A111118,’ which uncannily resembles the date ’11/11/18,’ – the end of World War I. Most dismiss this as a very creepy coincidence given no one could have predicted the start or the end date of the war at the time, let alone encode it on a license plate.
Coincidences have a funny way of happening, be it a friendly face in a crowded room or similar birthdays. They may seem strange, and they often are, but that’s what makes history rich and interesting.