Last time, we started on the story of the Dancing Plague of 1518 when dozens and dozens of German peasants suddenly took to the streets and silently dancing for days on end. No music. Just dancing.
At the height of the crisis, fifteen people died every day from exhaustion, strokes, and heart attacks. Local government people were panicked. Doctors had no answers. In a blind attempt to stop things, authorities thought if they played music for the dancers, they’d receive what they were looking for and just dance themselves out. But that didn’t work.
Within a month, 400 people had died from what was called the Dancing Plague. And then one day, it just stopped. No more dancing. Everyone went home, and it was all over.
What caused this? We have no idea. It could have been a fungal infection of some sort that sent people into spasms that resembled dancing. Maybe it was some sort of mass hysteria. But we still don’t know what happened in the summer of 1518.
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