Episode 139: Death by Dance - The Dancing Plague of 1518

What if I told you that one of the deadliest outbreaks in history didn’t spread through sickness, but through movement? In the summer of 1518, in Strasbourg, the residents experienced an outbreak that had happened only in minor cases before.  A woman stepped into the street and started dancing. No music. No celebration. And she didn’t stop for days, not eating or sleeping. After just a week, dozens of people had joined her. But this dancing wasn’t out of joy it was agony.  Within a month, hundreds were convulsing, twisting, leaping uncontrollably through the streets. They danced until their feet bled, or until they collapsed. Some danced until dying from exhaustion, heart failure, or strokes. Theories around what could have caused this have been debated for centuries. Some blame poisoning, other historians point to mass psychogenic illness, collective hysteria fueled by starvation, disease, religious terror, and constant death. Eventually, the dancing stopped as suddenly as it began with no explanation.  And to this day, we don’t really know why hundreds of people danced themselves to death in 1518. But this much is clear: the mind can override the body and history doesn’t always go along with logic.   Sources: “What Was the Dancing Plague of 1518?” by Evan Andrews on History on August 31, 2015 (https://www.history.com/articles/what-was-the-dancing-plague-of-1518) “The Dancing Plague of 1518” by David Webb on All About Psychology on September 16, 2025 (https://allaboutpsychology.substack.com/p/the-dancing-plague-of-1518) “The Dancing Plague of 1518” by Ned Pennant-Rea on The Public Domain Review on July 10, 2018 (https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-dancing-plague-of-1518/) “Mass Hysteria Isn't Just a 'Panic' — What It Means and Why It Happens” on Healthline (https://www.healthline.com/health/mental-health/mass-hysteria) “The Plague That Made People Dance for Weeks” on The Forgotten YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKqScmdeA4) https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2018/jul/05/bizarre-dance-epidemic-of-summer-1518-strasbourg https://connection.newmanministry.com/saint/saint-vitus/ https://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-1760,00.html https://www.britannica.com/place/Strasbourg