12 Incredible Historical Coincidences That Sound Totally Made Up (But Aren’t)

History’s Weirdest Plot Twists: 12 Incredible Historical Coincidences That Sound Totally Made Up (But Aren’t)

Let’s face it—history is already strange enough without tossing in wild coincidences. But sometimes, reality decides to one-up fiction, throw out the script, and improvise something so bizarre it could make a conspiracy theorist spill their coffee. From presidents with freakishly linked lives to eerie book predictions, here are 12 real-life historical “Wait, WHAT?!” moments that prove truth is way, way weirder than fiction.

Here are 12 Incredible Historical Coincidences That Sound Totally Made Up, But True:

1. The Curious Case of the Two Presidents: Lincoln and Kennedy

Abraham Lincoln was elected to Congress in 1846. John F. Kennedy? 1946. Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Kennedy in 1960. Both were succeeded by a man named Johnson (Andrew and Lyndon), both Johnsons were born exactly 100 years apart, and both presidents were shot in the head on a Friday, while sitting next to their wives, by assassins known by three names, with 15 letters in their full names. Someone get a calculator.

2. The Twins Separated at Birth Who Lived the Same Life

Jim Lewis and Jim Springer were identical twins separated at birth and adopted by different families. When they reunited at age 39, they discovered they’d both married women named Linda, divorced, then remarried women named Betty. Both named their sons James Allan, owned dogs named Toy, and smoked Salem cigarettes, drove Chevys, and worked in law enforcement. Nature? Nurture? Or just the universe having a laugh?

3. Mark Twain and Halley's Comet

Mark Twain was born in 1835, the same year Halley’s Comet passed by Earth. He famously predicted he would die when it returned. Sure enough, Twain passed away in 1910, just one day after the comet made its next closest approach. Twain called it: “It will be the greatest disappointment of my life if I don’t go out with Halley’s Comet.”

4. The Book That Predicted the Titanic

In 1898, author Morgan Robertson wrote a novella called Futility, or the Wreck of the Titan. It was about an “unsinkable” British ocean liner that hits an iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic. The ship’s name? Titan. The real Titanic sank 14 years later, in 1912, under eerily similar circumstances. That’s less of a coincidence and more like a plot spoiler from the universe.

5. The Bullet That Waited 20 Years

In 1893, Mexican General Antonio López de Santa Anna was shot in the leg during battle. Twenty years later, during surgery, doctors found the bullet still lodged inside—and it was the same one that had been fired by a soldier Santa Anna later pardoned. Talk about a long game.

6. A Falling Baby Saved Twice—By the Same Man

In 1930s Detroit, a baby fell out of a second-story window and landed on a man named Joseph Figlock, who happened to be walking below. The baby was unharmed, and so was Joseph. A year later, the same baby fell out of the same window, and—yes—landed on Joseph again. Still unharmed. Either someone install a railing or give Joseph a cape.

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