The Strasbourg Dancing Plague of 1518

In 1518, an entire town in France literally danced themselves to death and nobody

knows why. A woman named Frau Troffea started dancing in the streets of Strasbourg and

couldn't stop. Within days, dozens joined her. Within a month, four hundred people

were uncontrollably dancing. Authorities thought they had dancing fever,

so their solution was to build stages and hire musicians to help them dance it out.

That obviously made it worse. People were collapsing from exhaustion, heart attacks,

and strokes. The dancing plague lasted months. Some historians think it was mass

hysteria from stress and famine. Others blame ergot poisoning from moldy bread causing hallucinations.