There's no such thing as coincidences… or are there?
Many events throughout recorded history have odd ways of coming together, dropping weird,
prophetic hints at things to come, or bringing a sequence of events full circle.
Here are just a few of the freaky coincidences that are stranger than fiction.
The Armistice license plate
In case you slept through history class, here's a quick recap: One of the major events that
kicked off World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
It's an event that's become so mythic that it's spawned a number of weird legends, like
the idea that in 1913, he hunted down a white stag and was targeted by a mortal curse as
a result.
We're not really sure about that one, but there is one strange coincidence that's absolutely
true — and it concerns his car.
The Graf and Stift double phaeton wasn't the cursed car of doom it was rumored to be, but
it did bear an odd message.
The car sat in a museum in Vienna for almost two decades before a British tourist pointed
out the odd significance of the vehicle's license plate, which reads "A 111 118"…
as in "Armistice, November 11, (19)18," the famous date of the agreement that ended World
War I.
Predicting Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, changed the course of World War II.
Global tensions were already high...so it's terrifying to think that someone inside the
United States may have not only known the attack was going to happen, but may have been
passing information to the public in the weirdest way possible.
On November 22, 1941, the New Yorker ran a few ads for a dice game called The Deadly
Double.
And because advertising is a product of the times, the ad showed the game being played
by people hiding in an air raid shelter.
It wasn't until after the attack on Pearl Harbor — two weeks later — that people
started noticing what numbers were showing on the ads' dice, including one ad with dice
that showed 12 and 7, which seemed like it could be referring to the date of the attack
on December 7.
Other similar ads piqued the interest of military intelligence… but it all turned out to be
a weird coincidence.
The theory that these ads had advance knowledge of the attack was so widespread that The New
York Times even ran a piece on the game's creator to debunk it, and declared it a case
of people's imaginations getting the better of them.
Founding Fathers vs. the Fourth of July
Ask any red-blooded American what July 4th is and you're bound to get an answer that
involves independence and hot dogs.
But July 4 has another strange significance that's usually overlooked: Founding Father
fatalities.
Five of America's Founding Fathers served as President: James Madison, John Adams, George
Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe, but that's not too unusual.
The weird part?
Jefferson and Adams both passed away on the exact same day: July 4, 1826, on the 50th
anniversary of the ratification of the Declaration of Independence.
The coincidence didn't go unnoticed; when Daniel Webster wrote a joint eulogy for them,
he said,
"It cannot but seem striking and extraordinary, that these two should live to see the fiftieth
year from the date of that act, [and] the heavens should open to receive them both at
once."
Only a few years later in 1831, James Monroe went up to powdered-wig heaven, leaving three
of seven gone on the birthday of the country they helped found.
That's enough to make anyone believe in signs.
But before you assume that the 4th of July does nothing but terminate Presidents, it
also gives back: 30th President Calvin Coolidge was born on July 4th, 1872.
9/11's pop prophecies
There are plenty of ridiculous conspiracy theories suggesting the U.S. government knew
what was going to happen on September 11, 2001.
But some pop culture coincidences are enough to make you wonder if something out there
in the universe was trying to tip us off.
One such coincidence is hidden in a video game called Deus Ex released in 2000.
The story takes you to New York City, where two buildings are conspicuously missing: the
Twin Towers.
While they were left out of the game for programming reasons, what's especially chilling is that
the game's lore acknowledges their absence, saying the buildings were destroyed by terrorists.
If that's not weird enough, there's also the band Dream Theater, who released their album
Live Scenes From New York on September 11, 2001.
The cover featured an apple, the Statue of Liberty, and the Twin Towers… all on fire.
When NoiseCreep spoke to Dream Theater's Mike Portnoy, he called it "one of the strangest
coincidences of my career."
And if you really want to believe that the truth is out there, there's the pilot episode
of the X-Files spinoff series, The Lone Gunmen, which aired on March 4th, 2001, and featured
an airliner being hijacked and almost hitting the Twin Towers, as well as a conspiracy theory
to blame the act on terrorists.
That's not even the last of the bizarre coincidences surrounding September 11th.
Triple terror
According to The Telegraph India, the vacation nightmares of Jason and Jenny Cairns-Lawrence
began when they were visiting New York City on September 11th, 2001.
When it came time to pick their next vacation, they decided to stay a little closer to their
Birmingham, England home.
They chose London, and on July 7, 2005, they were in the nation's capital...when four bombers
attacked the London Underground.
In 2008, they were faced with making a vacation choice again.
They headed to Mumbai… and they were staying in the Colaba area when terrorists attacked
the city on November 26, taking almost 180 casualties.
There's just one word the Cairns-Lawrences need to learn: staycation.
Life finds a way
Life is one of the most iconic magazines of the 20th century, and its pages have featured
countless defining moments, starting with its very first issue on November 23rd, 1936.
On the inside, the very first photo is of a baby being cradled in a doctor's hands.
That baby was George Story, and the caption reads, "Life begins."
Story went on to become a journalist, but that's not the big coincidence here.
On April 4th, 2000, Life announced it was ceasing publication.
With end of Life magazine also came the end of Story's life — he passed away a month
later of heart failure at age 63.
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