We’re constantly finding stories about amazing coincidences. Here are a few more of Uncle John’s favorites.
Charles Coghlan was born on Prince Edward Island in 1841. He became a successful stage actor and toured the world, but the island was always his home. In 1899, during an appearance on Galveston Island, Texas, he fell ill and died, and was buried in a Galveston cemetery. On September 8, 1900, a hurricane struck Galveston, washing away most of the town and swamping all the cemeteries. Seven years later, a fishermen from Prince Edward Island noticed a large box in the water. He towed it to shore, chipped off the barnacles, and discovered the coffin of Charles Coghlan, beloved native son. It had floated into the Gulf of Mexico, been caught by the West Indian current, carried into the Gulf Stream, and deposited on shore only a few miles from his Canadian birthplace.
Christina Cort lived in Salvador, Brazil, in 1966 when an out-of-control truck crashed into her house. In 1989, she was still living in the same house when another out-of-control truck crashed into it. It was the same truck driver who had barreled into her home 23 years earlier.
In 1983, a man cutting peat for fuel near Cheshire, England, uncovered a human skull, which he took to the police. Forensic scientists examined the remains and announced they belonged to a European middle-aged woman who had been buried for not less than five but not more than 50 years. After investigating, the police found that a Mrs. Malika Reyn-Bardt had mysteriously disappeared from the area in 1961. When police confronted Peter Reyn-Bardt with the evidence, he broke down and confessed to murdering her and burying pieces of her body at various locations. Before the trial, however, the skull was sent to Oxford University’s lab for additional testing. Those tests revealed that the skull actually belonged to a woman who had died around 410 A.D. Reyn-Bardt pleaded not guilty, but was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. No trace of his dead wife has ever been found.
Holy molar! In its lifetime, an alligator will go through as many as 3,000 teeth.
Actor Anthony Hopkins, while playing a role in a movie based on a book called The Girl from Petrovka by George Feifer, looked all over London for a copy of the book but was unable to find one. Later that day he was waiting in a subway station for his train when he noticed someone had left a book on a bench. Picking it up, Hopkins found it was…The Girl from Petrovka. Two years later Hopkins was filming another movie in Vienna when he was visited on the set by author George Feifer. Feifer complained that he no longer had even a single copy of his own book because he’d loaned his last one to a friend who had lost it somewhere in London. Feifer added that it was particularly annoying because he had written notes in the margins. Hopkins, incredulous, handed Feifer the copy he had found in the subway station. It was the same book.
• We once printed a fact that said: “Moo. Country star Lyle Lovett is afraid of cows.” Not long after the book was released, Lyle Lovett was attacked by a bull.
• Our 2002 Page-A-Day calendar was written in 2001. The page for March 27, 2002, had a funny story about Milton Berle, who just so happened to die on…March 27, 2002.
• Sad coincidence: In 2000, we put together a page of odd holidays for our All-Purpose Extra Strength Bathroom Reader. We found a great one called “No News is Good News Day.” The date of the holiday: September 11.
That’s gotta hurt: Actor Jackie Chan once dislocated his cheek bone filming an action movie.