Cool Coincidences

In 1994, a 60-year-old Dutchman named Cor Stoop took a cruise, became seasick and lost his false teeth overboard. Later a fisherman caught a cod which had swallowed some false teeth. Upon hearing about it on the radio, Mr. Stoop contacted the fisherman and was reunited with his missing teeth.
Source: funtrivia.com

In 1930s Detroit, a man named Joseph Figlock was to become an amazing figure in a young (and, apparently, incredibly careless) mother's life. As Figlock was walking down the street, the mother's baby fell from a high window onto Figlock. The baby's fall was broken and Figlock and the baby were unharmed. A year later, the selfsame baby fell from the selfsame window, again falling onto Mr. Figlock as he was passing beneath. Once again, both of them survived the event.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In 19th century Austria, a near-famous painter named Joseph Aigner attempted suicide on several occasions. During his first attempt to hang himself at the age of 18, Aigner was interrupted by a mysterious Capuchin monk. And again at age 22, he was prevented from hanging himself by the very same monk. Eight years later, he was sentenced to the gallows for his political activities. But again, his life was saved by the intervention of the same monk. At age 68, Joseph Aigner finally succeeded in suicide, using a pistol to shoot himself. Not surprisingly, his funeral ceremony was conducted by the very same Capuchin monk - a man whose name Aiger never even knew.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In Beatrice, Nebraska, on March 1, 1950, all church choir members scheduled to appear for group practice arrived late. Each member's various reasons for being tardy were unrelated. But it was a lucky escape. At 7:20 the church was destroyed by a gas explosion.
Source: funtrivia.com

A German mother who photographed her infant son in 1914 left the film to be developed at a store in Strasbourg. In those days some film plates were sold individually. World War I broke out and unable to return to Strasbourg, the woman gave up the picture for lost. Two years later she bought a film plate in Frankfurt, over 100 miles away, to take a picture of her newborn daughter. When developed the film turned out to be a double exposure, with the picture of her daughter superimposed on the earlier picture of her son. Through some incredible twist of fate, her original film, never developed, had been mislabeled as unused, and had eventually been resold to her.
Source: http://www.neveh.org/price/price3.html

In 1973, actor Anthony Hopkins agreed to appear in “The Girl From Petrovka”, based on a novel by George Feifer. Unable to find a copy of the book anywhere in London, Hopkins was surprised to discover one lying on a bench in a train station. It turned out to be George Feifer’s own annotated (personal) copy, which Feifer had lent to a friend, and which had been stolen from his friend's car.
Source: funtrivia.com

The twin brothers, Jim Lewis and Jim Springer, were separated at birth, adopted by different families. Unknown to each other, both families named the boys James. Both James grew up not knowing of the other, yet both sought law-enforcement training, both had abilities in mechanical drawing and carpentry, and each had married women named Linda. Both had sons, one of whom was named James Alan and the other named James Allan. The twin brothers also divorced their wives and married other women - both named Betty. And they both owned dogs which they named Toy.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

In 1883, Henry Ziegland broke off a relationship with his girlfriend who, out of distress, committed suicide. The girl's enraged brother hunted down Ziegland and shot him. Believing he had killed Ziegland, the brother then took his own life. In fact, however, Ziegland had not been killed. The bullet had only grazed his face, lodging into a tree. It was a narrow escape. Years later, Ziegland decided to cut down the same tree, which still had the bullet in it. The huge tree seemed so formidable that he decided to blow it up with dynamite. The explosion propelled the bullet into Ziegland's head, killing him.
Source: http://mandy.jimandy.com/coincidence.php

From The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche: "A young woman I was treating had, at a critical moment, a dream in which she was given a golden scarab. While she was telling me this dream I sat with my back to the closed window. Suddenly I heard a noise behind me, like a gentle tapping. I turned round and saw a flying insect knocking against the window-pane from outside. I opened the window and caught the creature in the air as it flew in. It was the nearest analogy to the golden scarab that one finds in our latitudes, a scarabaeid beetle, the common rose-chafer (Cetoaia urata) which contrary to its usual habits had evidently felt an urge to get into a dark room at this particular moment. I must admit that nothing like it ever happened to me before or since, and that the dream of the patient has remained unique in my experience."
Source: Carl Jung, Psychologist

Historical coincidence: The lives of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, two of America's founders. Jefferson crafted the Declaration of Independence, showing drafts of it to Adams, who (with Benjamin Franklin) helped to edit and hone it.The document was approved by the Continental Congress on July 4, 1776. Surprisingly, both Jefferson and Adams died on the same day, July 4, 1826 - exactly 50 years from the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Source: http://www.myfavoriteezines.com/TopPicks/040807.html

Physical coincidence: If the density of the universe one second after the Big Bang had been greater by one part in a thousand billion, the universe would have recollapsed after ten years. On the other hand, if the density of the universe at that time had been less by the same amount, the universe would have been essentially empty when it was about ten years old.
Source: Stephen Hawking, Physicist

Linguistic coincidences:
Arabic akh 'brother' and Mongolian akh 'brother'
Bikol aki 'child' and Korean aki 'child'
Blackfoot aki 'woman' and Even akhi 'woman'
Arabic ana 'I' and Gondi ana 'I'
Arabic anta 'thou' and Japanese anta 'thou'
Arabic ard 'earth' and Dutch aard 'earth'
Hebrew ari 'lion' and Tamil ari 'lion'
Hebrew awir 'air' and Welsh awyr 'air'
Kyrgyz ayal 'woman' and Parji ayal 'woman'
Ga ba 'come' and Hebrew ba 'come'
English bad and Persian bad 'bad'
English chop and Uzbek chop 'chop'
English dog and Mbabaram dog 'dog'
-- and hundreds of others.
Source: http://members.aol.com/yahyam/coincidence.html

Each of the case histories is factually documented.
Source material is referenced at bottom of page.

In Berkeley, California, 1974: Mrs. Willard Lovell was trying to get into her locked apartment after she had accidently locked herself out. At that moment a postman arrived with a letter from her brother who had stayed there a short time earlier. In the letter was her spare key, which he had borrowed and was returning.

A story by Edgar Allan Poe told of a shipwrecked open boat, and of three survivors who killed and ate the fourth -- a fictional cabin boy named Richard Parker. Fifty years later, an actual shipwreck occurred in which three survivors in an open boat killed and ate the fourth, a cabin boy named (you guessed it) Richard Parker.

In 1977 Texas, two culprits tried to cash a forged and stolen check at a teller's window. But alas, the teller happened to be their intended victim. Just a few hours earlier, the checks had been stolen from her and her boyfriend's home and she immediately recognized them as her own. She notified the police and the thieves were quickly captured.

At his first lecture at a university, a new statistics professor, in order to demonstrate to his class the laws of probability, tossed a fair coin which landed on the floor...vertically on its side. The odds of this happening by chance have been calculated as a billion to one.

El Paso highway patrolman Allen Farby had been chasing a truck when he crashed his motorcyle on a hot June night. While his battered leg lay sprawled on the pavement, nearly amputated, a businessman named Alfred Smith chanced upon meeting him. In the nick of time, Smith applied a crude tourniquet to the wound with his tie, an act which stopped the bleeding and saved Farby's life. Five years later, a recovered Farby was on patrol when he heard on his radio about a car smashed into a tree. He answered the call and arrived at the wreck before the ambulance. The victim's leg was smashed and was bleeding from a ruptured artery. Knowing about first aid, Farby applied a tourniquet and stopped the bleeding, then pulled the man to a more comfortable position on the ground. That's when he suddenly recognized the victim: Alfred Smith, the same man who had rescued Farby just five years before. Later, Farby was to declare: "It goes to prove that one good tourniquet deserves another."

Somewhere in New York, a psychology professor found a rare book he had been searching for on a street corner. But later he discovered that the psychologist who had recommended it says she never even heard of it.

During a business stopover in Louisville, Kentucky, George D. Bryson registered at the Brown Hotel and was staying in room 307. As a lark, he stepped up to the desk and asked the mail clerk if there was any mail for him. The clerk handed him a letter addressed to the previous occupant of his room, another George D. Bryson.

A West German farmer's wife had lost her wedding ring forty years earlier in a potato field. She finally found it while dining in her kitchen, inside a potato grown in that field.

Death Takes a Holiday: Obituary writer Mildred West chose the perfect time to take a week's vacation. During her absence not a single death occurred in her city of 32,000. Normally, an average of ten deaths occurred each week.

In 1967 England, a police constable named Moscardi told his friend that the number of his police station had changed, and was now 40166. Only later did he discover he had made an error, his new number actually being 40116. A short time later, while Moscardi was patrolling an industrial area, he noticed a light inside one of the buildings and entered to investigate. No fire was discovered, but inside the room a phone rang and the constable answered it. It was his friend, who had dialed the wrong number Moscardi had given him, and which belonged to the unmarked phone in the room Moscardi had never entered before.

In Worcester, England, 1974: Motorcyclist Frederick Chance crashed into a car that was driven by another Frederick Chance.

In 1953, Boone Aiken lost his engraved fountain pen in Florence, South Carolina. Three years later, while in New York City with his wife, Mrs. Aiken spied a pen on the street next to their hotel. The pen turned out to be Boone's lost original.

Sources: Associated Press, Arthur Koestler, London Sunday Times, and Alan Vaughan (from his book, Incredible Coincidence).