Cool Coincidences

sharkman

Feel free to add yours :

In 1994, a 60-year-old Dutchman named Cor Stoop took a cruise, became seasick and lost his false teeth overboard. Later a fisherman caught a cod which had swallowed some false teeth. Upon hearing about it on the radio, Mr. Stoop contacted the fisherman and was reunited with his missing teeth.
Source: funtrivia.com

In 1930s Detroit, a man named Joseph Figlock was to become an amazing figure in a young (and, apparently, incredibly careless) mother's life. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and Figlock and the baby were unharmed. A year later, the selfsame baby fell from the selfsame window, again falling onto Mr. Figlock as he was passing beneath. Once again, both of them survived the event.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In 19th century Austria, a near-famous painter named Joseph Aigner attempted suicide on several occasions. During his first attempt to hang himself at the age of 18, Aigner was interrupted by a mysterious Capuchin monk. And again at age 22, he was prevented from hanging himself by the very same monk. Eight years later, he was sentenced to the gallows for his political activities. But again, his life was saved by the intervention of the same monk. At age 68, Joseph Aigner finally succeeded in suicide, using a pistol to shoot himself. Not surprisingly, his funeral ceremony was conducted by the very same Capuchin monk - a man whose name Aiger never even knew.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In Beatrice, Nebraska, on March 1, 1950, all church choir members scheduled to appear for group practice arrived late. Each member's various reasons for being tardy were unrelated. But it was a lucky escape. At 7:20 the church was destroyed by a gas explosion.
Source: funtrivia.com

A German mother who photographed her infant son in 1914 left the film to be developed at a store in Strasbourg. In those days some film plates were sold individually. World War I broke out and unable to return to Strasbourg, the woman gave up the picture for lost. Two years later she bought a film plate in Frankfurt, over 100 miles away, to take a picture of her newborn daughter. When developed the film turned out to be a double exposure, with the picture of her daughter superimposed on the earlier picture of her son. Through some incredible twist of fate, her original film, never developed, had been mislabeled as unused, and had eventually been resold to her.
Source: http://www.neveh.org/price/price3.html

In 1973, actor Anthony Hopkins agreed to appear in “The Girl From Petrovka”, based on a novel by George Feifer. Unable to find a copy of the book anywhere in London, Hopkins was surprised to discover one lying on a bench in a train station. It turned out to be George Feifer’s own annotated (personal) copy, which Feifer had lent to a friend, and which had been stolen from his friend's car.
Source: funtrivia.com

The twin brothers, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, were separated at birth, adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. Both James grew up not knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. Both had sons, one of whom was named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl's enraged brother hunted down Ziegland and shot him. Believing he had killed Ziegland, the brother then took his own life. In fact, however, Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet had only grazed his face, lodging into a tree. It was a narrow escape. Years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the same tree, which still had the bullet in it. The huge tree seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland's head, killing him.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

From The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: "A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetoaia urata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience."
Source: Carl Jung, Psychologist

Historical coincidence: The lives of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America's founders. Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, showing drafts of it to Adams, who (with Benjamin Franklin) helped to edit and hone it.The document was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Surprisingly, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826 - exactly 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Source: http://www.myfavoriteezines.com/TopPicks/040807.html

Physical coincidence: If the density of the universe one second after the Big Bang had been greater by one part in a thousand billion, the universe would have recollapsed after ten years. On the other hand, if the density of the universe at that time had been less by the same amount, the universe would have been essentially empty when it was about ten years old.
Source: Stephen Hawking, Physicist

Linguistic coincidences:
Arabic akh 'brother' and Mongolian akh 'brother'
Bikol aki 'child' and Korean aki 'child'
Blackfoot aki 'woman' and Even akhi 'woman'
Arabic ana 'I' and Gondi ana 'I'
Arabic anta 'thou' and Japanese anta 'thou'
Arabic ard 'earth' and Dutch aard 'earth'
Hebrew ari 'lion' and Tamil ari 'lion'
Hebrew awir 'air' and Welsh awyr 'air'
Kyrgyz ayal 'woman' and Parji ayal 'woman'
Ga ba 'come' and Hebrew ba 'come'
English bad and Persian bad 'bad'
English chop and Uzbek chop 'chop'
English dog and Mbabaram dog 'dog'
-- and hundreds of others.
Source: http://members.aol.com/yahyam/coincidence.html

Gordon

I remember seeing a program years ago, something like Thats Life where a business man left work and walked somewhere. He passed a phone box while it rang and out of sheer curiosity he decided to pick it up. The person on the other line said something like "Jim, you forgot your wallet back here at work". It was his secretary and he was Jim. It turned out that his secretary either misdialled his cell phone or got a wrong connection while calling his cell phone and got the phone box unintentionally.

humanji

There's the story I heard years ago (and they tell it at the start of Magnolia) where the body of a man was found on the ground outside a tenement block. At first it was thought he commited suicide, but then the poice saw that he had a shotgun blast to the chest. Upon investigating it, the full story emerged...

An elderly couple who had constant arguments on the forth floor of the tenement block, always ended the arguments with the husband grabbing the gun, pointing it at the wife and pulling the trigger. But, the gun was never loaded, he just did it for effect. The couples son was tired of the arguments and one day loaded the gun, to finally end the fighting. The son then went to the roof of the block and jumped off the edge. At the same time, the couple had just reached the pinnacle of the argument and the elderly man had the shot gun, was pointing it at his wife and pulled the trigger. He missed his wife and the shot went out the window, hitting his son in the chest as he flew past the window.