The Dancing Plague of 1518 — 400 people danced themselves to death in Strasbourg | True Freaky Facts

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]In 1518, a woman started dancing and couldn't [music] stop. History is freaky. Her name was Frau Troffea. She danced for 6 days straight [music] in the streets of Strasbourg in the Holy Roman Empire.

[00:00:14]She collapsed from exhaustion, but her feet kept moving.

[00:00:18]Within a month, 400 people had joined her. They danced until their hearts gave out.

[00:00:24]City officials thought they knew the cure.

[00:00:27]They believed the dancers needed to get the frenzy out of their systems.

[00:00:31]So, they hired musicians.

[00:00:34]Imagine calling an ambulance and they show up with a DJ. The city literally built a stage and paid for a band to play day and night. Historian John Waller studied the [music] outbreak in 2008 and concluded it was mass psychogenic illness. A stress-induced trance triggered by years of famine [music] and disease. The plague finally ended in September.

[00:00:58]Survivors were carted to a mountaintop shrine and forced to pray for forgiveness.

[00:01:04]You could be next.

[00:01:06]Under enough pressure, your brain can hijack your body.

[00:01:10]400 people danced themselves to exhaustion, stroke, [music] and heart attack. And the official cure was more music. Sometimes the strangest epidemics leave no [music] virus behind.

[00:01:23]Just a mystery carved into the cobblestones. Now you know.