The Dancing Plague...

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Imagine you walked outside and saw dozens of your neighbors violently dancing until their feet bled and collapsed unconscious. This actually happened in 1518 in a town called Strawboard. All starting with this woman right here named Fra Troia. One day randomly walking outside of her house and dancing in the streets. At first, people thought nothing of it. Maybe she just liked dancing or was a little bit crazy. But this is where things got weird. As hours passed, she just didn't stop. looking completely exhausted, drenched in sweat, and somehow kept moving all throughout day and night. And it only got worse because people strangely started joining her one by one, dancing in this weird translike state. Still, it was only a few people, so no one too concerned yet. But as days passed, not only weren't they stopping, but people kept joining in. At one point, reaching dozens of people. Now the town was worried, hoping they would just eventually stop on their own. But no. Their feet became bloody and bruised, bodies on the brink of collapsing. People tried dragging them away, holding them still, giving them food and water, taking them to church, and even built a stage with music playing to hopefully dance the sickness out. But nothing they tried was working, only stopping unless they physically collapsed. Some even reportedly dying from exhaustion where this would go on for multiple months starting in July slowly fading out around early September with 400 infected people in total.

[00:01:20]Whether it was mass hysteria, poisoning, or mental illness, to this day, we still don't know the exact reason for the dancing plague.