The 5 Most Mind-Blowing Coincidences of All Time

We have previously pointed out that the kind of coincidences you'd dismiss as bad writing if you saw them in a movie happen all the time in real life. In fact, history is full of bizarre coincidences that get downright creepy ...

Edwin Booth, perhaps unfairly known today as the brother of assassin John Wilkes Booth, was once upon a time known as the greatest actor in American history. In fact, certain theater historians and steampunk enthusiasts would probably argue that he still is today. His reputation as an actor was described as "mythic," and a statue of him stands in Manhattan's Gramercy Park to this very day.

That's what having a brother who killed the freaking president gets you -- in his day, Edwin was as famous as George Clooney, as classy as Clive Owen, as lusted after as Johnny Depp and as awesome as Josh Brolin. Hell, he even looked suspiciously like Robert De Niro ...

... and we bet that most of you have never heard his name before today.

But there's something else ...

Where it Gets Weird:

Booth performed a heroic act, one that would have gotten him into the history books. It took place during the last months of the Civil War at a crowded train station in Jersey City.

That's right. Even back then Jersey was known as a death-trap.

According to the young man that John Wilkes (sorry) Edwin Booth saved:

The incident occurred while a group of passengers were late at night purchasing their sleeping car places from the conductor who stood on the station platform. ... There was some crowding, and I happened to be pressed by it against the car body while waiting my turn. In this situation the train began to move, and by the motion I was twisted off my feet, and had dropped somewhat, with feet downward, into the open space, and was personally helpless, when my coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform. Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name.

Imagine if you, as a kid, fell off a ledge and were caught by Chuck Norris. Not the wacky Internet meme Chuck Norris, but the actor you've seen on TV a million times. That's what it was like for the kid.

Mike Huckabee knows that feeling well.

Where it Gets Even Weirder:

Since Edwin Booth was the kind of guy who did good deeds even when there were no cameras present, he genuinely had no idea who he'd just saved. He simply accepted the lad's gratitude, probably signed him an autograph, and spent the rest of his afternoon on a train reading a terrible fan-script the kid "happened to have on him" about William Shakespeare fighting zombies.

A few days later, Booth received a letter of commendation from Adam Badeau, an officer to the staff of General Ulysses S. Grant. It turned out that this young man Edwin had saved was actually Robert Todd Lincoln, the son of President Abraham Lincoln.

And father of Sean Connery's beard.

Keep in mind, it's not like the Booth family and the Lincoln family were neighbors, always running into each other. They weren't. They didn't travel in the same political circles -- the Booths were famous theater actors; they toured the country. This incident happened on a random train platform in New Jersey. It could have been any stranger and any random kid.

That act of heroism would have gone down as the only, unlikely interaction between the Booth family and the Lincoln family, if Edwin's brother John hadn't gone off the deep end and assassinated the kid's father only a few months later, nearly killing the country.

Siblings are nothing but trouble.

We're going to be honest with you: There is really no way to build up the following story. It's just one of those things that is mathematically possible in the vastness of universe, but when it happens, it's creepier than those twin little girls from The Shining.

Where it Gets Weird:

In July 1975, newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic went nuts over the death of 17-year-old Erskine Lawrence Ebbin, the poor kid having been knocked off his moped by a taxi in Hamilton, Bermuda.

You see, the previous year his brother was killed ... on the same street. Also by a taxi. Both kids were 17, and they were hit almost one year apart. Oh, and they happened to be driving the same moped.

Moped show-boating claims two more lives.

Well ... OK. Mopeds are inherently unsafe, right? And maybe they both drove recklessly. It could happen.

Where it Gets Even Weirder:

Before we go any further, please know that Cracked had to check with several overseas libraries and even the Library of Congress to verify this report.

WE STOP AT NOTHING.

The following clipping appeared on page nine, column three of The Scunthorpe Evening Telegraph on July 21, 1975:

That's right.

The two brothers were killed by the same taxi.

With the same driver.

Carrying the same passenger.

Almost exactly one year later.

The Final Destination movies exist, folks, and you are living in them right now.

It's worth noting that death can occasionally be bribed with coke.

On March 12, 1951, Hank Ketcham's Dennis the Menace comic strip first hit American newspapers. It's still running to this day, in more than 1,000 newspapers, because comic strips never, ever die.

Where it Gets Weird:

Just a few hours before Ketcham's Dennis the Menace hit the nation, on the opposite side of the Atlantic, issue No. 452 of the British comic The Beano hit newsstands even though it was dated 17 March, 1951. This particular comic was notable for featuring the first appearance of what went on to become cartoonist David Law's most famous creation: Dennis the Menace.

Fair to fair, this kid looks like he could kick Dennis's ass.

That creepy muskrat at his feet is supposed to be Dennis' dog.

Where it Gets Even Weirder:

So, their comics strips had the same exact name, and for some bizarre reason were published on the same exact day. That means the guy in the UK just ripped off his American counterpart, right? Or vice versa?

Was this just belated revenge for Yorktown?

Nope. By all accounts, neither man knew, or had any way of knowing, that there was an equivalent comic being developed an ocean away. No lawsuits were filed. After all, if one of them had caught wind of the other ahead of time, he'd have changed the title--it's to neither creator's advantage to create confusion among readers (for all you know the other comic is the worst thing ever). It just appears to be a massive coincidence, or as Carl Jung would have called it, synchronicity.

Besides, aside from this freak occurrence, the two characters had nothing in common. Hank Ketcham's take on Dennis was based on his own son, and David Law's Dennis was more like a gritty reboot of Calvin.

Something tells us this kid actually does piss on stuff in his comics.

Hank Ketcham and David Law decided to amicably continue their separate works, and both characters ended up becoming immensely popular with their respective audiences.

Though they clearly bought their shirts from the same thrift shop.

However, it was Hank Ketcham's Dennis that got made into a movie in 1993 starring Walter Matthau, Marty's mom from Back to the Future, and that blond kid from Rushmore.

Also, a down-and-out Doc Brown had a cameo.

When the movie came out in Britain it was marketed as Dennis to avoid a trademark infringement with David Law's angrier, grittier, created-on-the-same-day-but-wholly-different-Dennis. Why they didn't just coincidentally make a film about the UK's Dennis at the same time is anyone's guess, but we're willing to bet that it was because such a film would not get a PG rating.

Seriously, this kid rocks.