You’ve heard of epidemics – an infectious disease that takes over a specific region – like smallpox, measles and polio. But have you heard of a dancing epidemic? Or a laughing epidemic? While they might seem odd, these epidemics did happen in history.
If you think things couldn’t get any weirder, take a look at these four epidemics of truly strange behavior that erupted in the past.
Epidemics of choreomania — uncontrollable manic dancing that is not part of a rave — broke out on more than one occasion in Europe during the Middle Ages. In one of the most notorious incidents, the mania spread to 400 people, who danced until they literally dropped.
Historians have proposed several theories to explain these bizarre outbreaks of dancing. One says it was an odd way of dealing with the grief and stress of the bubonic plague, which rampaged through Europe somewhat regularly ...
