Imagine walking outside and all you see is a whole bunch of people who are laughing and dancing uncontrollably, how would you react? Would you be concerned or entertained? That’s exactly what the Dancing Plague of 1518 was: an epidemic that had no solution and to this day is still a huge mystery in history. 

In July of 1518, a woman known as Frau Troffea fell into a silent dance in the middle of the streets of Strasbourg, which is now located in France. She kept dancing for at least a week with some minor breaks but eventually, the authorities sent her away to a mountaintop shrine to get cured however the “disease” had already spread. Soon enough 3 dozen of the residents of the city joined in. They danced and danced and danced. By August, nearly 2 months later, this epidemic had sickened nearly 400 people and they still had no explanation as to what was going on. The town hired professional dancers and musicians to play background music for the sickly dancers. People held up food and water for the people to grab as they danced by.

After nearly dancing for 2 months straight, many people started dying from strokes and heart attacks and soon they all started dropping like flies. However, this did not stop the dancers, they would move around anyone who tried to stop them from dancing. This plague didn’t stop until September when they sent the dancers to a mountaintop shrine for prayers for their well-being. This all sounds funny and sounds like a huge lie, but it’s very much real, and many historical medical documents show this did happen. 

So the big question is, why would they keep dancing without stopping? There are many possibilities and theories for this rare phenomenon. Some say they were possessed by the devil, some say that the dancers’ food was poisoned or rotten which caused them to start acting like this. Others say they were crazy and going mentally insane which is what caused them to react like that but even after 500 years this phenomenon is still not explained.