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In the summer of 1518, the city of Strasbourg witnessed one of the strangest events in recorded history: a woman stepped into the street and began to dance—violently, endlessly, and without music. Within days, dozens joined her. Within weeks, hundreds were moving in a fevered rhythm they could not escape. This wasn’t a festival. It wasn’t a ritual. It was an inexplicable epidemic that terrified a city already buckling under famine, fear, and faith.
As bodies collapsed, priests blamed the wrath of St. Vitus while physicians insisted the dancers suffered from “hot blood.” The city tried everything—from musicians to medical cures to spiritual pilgrimages—but nothing stopped the movement. People danced until their feet bled, until their muscles tore, until their hearts gave out. And all the while, Strasbourg watched helplessly as logic dissolved into mystery.
Centuries later, scholars still debate what really happened. Was it mass psychogenic illness? Ergot poisoning from contaminated rye? Religious mania? Or something far deeper—a collective cry from a population pushed beyond its breaking point? In this episode, we uncover one of history’s most chilling unsolved mysteries and ask what it means when belief, fear, and trauma move a community in ways the body cannot resist.
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