Have you ever heard of the Dancing Plague? Most people haven't.

In 1518, hundreds of people danced themselves to death. Nobody could stop them. Nobody knew why.It started with one woman.In July 1518, in Strasbourg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, a woman named Frau Troffea walked into the street and began to dance.

She didn't stop. Not for hours. Not for days.By the end of the first week, 34 people had joined her.By the end of the month, there were 400.

They danced through the night. Through bleeding feet. Through broken bones. Their eyes were blank. Many of them wept as they moved, as if they couldn't bear what their own bodies were doing.

They couldn't eat. They couldn't sleep. They couldn't stop.Dozens died from exhaustion, heart failure, and stroke.The authorities thought more dancing would cure them.They hired musicians. They built a stage. They brought in professional dancers to keep the afflicted company, believing the frenzy needed to run its course.It didn't.

To this day, no one has a definitive answer for what happened. Mass psychogenic illness. Ergot poisoning from contaminated grain. A population so broken by famine, plague, and religious terror that their minds simply... snapped.