BYGONE COINCIDENCES

LIFE TO DEATH

When Life Magazine ran its first issue it featured a baby on the cover

by the name of George Story along with the headline “Life Begins”.

63 year later when the magazine published its last issue they

decided to put George Story on the cover again with the headline

“Life Ends”. Later that month George died of a heart attack.

THE FOUNDING FATHERS

John Adams and Thomas Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826

exactly 50 years after signing the Declaration of Independence.

John Adams didn’t know that Jefferson had died several hours

early and his last words were “Thomas Jefferson survives”.

THE NIGHT AMERICA BURNED

Although you’ve probably heard of the Great Chicago fire, did you

know it wasn’t even the largest fire that night? The Port Huron Fire,

Peshtigo Fire, and the Holland Fire all happened that evening too.

THE D-DAY CROSSWORD PUZZLE

In May 1944 Leonard Dawes, the British school teacher responsible

for compiling the Daily Telegraph’s crossword puzzles, included

several code words as answers. Well, more than several.

And two of the words included beaches that were chosen as

landing spots including Omaha and Utah. British agents

interrogated him because they thought he was a spy but

it turned out to be pure coincidence.

MARK TWAIN AND HALLEY'S COMET

Mark Twain was born shortly after Halley’s Comet passed by the

Earth in 1835. He once predicted that he would “go out with it”

too. Mark died the day after the comet returned to Earth in 1910.

THOMAS CRAPPER

It is purely a coincidence that the person who mass produced

toilets had such an interesting name.

WILMER MCLEAN

The First Battle of Bull Run during the American Civil War started on

the McLean farm. The family moved over a hundred miles away

to escape only to have a messenger from Robert E Lee show up

on their doorstep 4 years later because he wanted to use their

house to formally surrender. The Civil War had both

started and ended on their property.

THE TITAN VS THE TITANIC

In 1898 Morgan Robertson published a book called Futility, or the

Wreck of the Titan. In the book a British ocean liner hits an

iceberg and sinks in the North Atlantic. This was 14 years

before the Titanic sank.