Description

Text Abby and Alan

Abby and Alan discuss the horrifying and very real dancing plague of 1518. In the French Town of Strasbourg, in the summer of 1518, a bizarre and horrifying plague took as many as 400 lives. The plague started with a single woman, who could not stop dancing. Almost for an entire week she danced alone until others slowly joined her. Dancing until their bodies gave out.

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Sources

• A Time to Dance, A Time to Die: The Extraordinary Story of The Dancing Plague of 1518. A book by John Waller. 
• A book from 1888 - The Black Death and The Dancing Mania by Justus Friedrich Karl Hecker.
• History.com article by Evan Andrews - What Was The Dancing Plague of 1518?
• The People Who Danced Themselves to Death by Rosalind Jana on BBC.com
• https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/dancing-plagues-and-mass-hysteria

• A Smithsonian Magazine Article - A Strange Case of Dancing Mania Struck Germany Six Centuries Ago Today by Marias Fessenden 

• Research help from April Brenker.

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