As a child, I used to think history was a really boring subject. The history text books used to always put me to sleep and I just couldn’t get myself interested in it. I used to wonder what the point was to learn all that stuff.
Fast forward many years, and now I feel like history is just beyond fascinating. It literally tells you about all the series of events that took place for things to be exactly the way they are.
But there is another facet to history which is that it is riddled with unsolved mysteries, some of which will perhaps always remain unsolved and it just intensifies its interestingness even more.
Today I want to talk about some of these unsolved mysteries that I was reading about just the other day, and found them really engrossing.
The Voynich Manuscript
From Wikimedia Commons.
The Voynich Manuscript is perhaps the most mysterious book in the world and dates back more than 500 years. It is written in a language that no one understands and by an unknown author. There are several things that make it way more interesting than other mysterious texts of history.
For one, most of the pages in this book have puzzling illustrations of plants, astronomical objects like sun, moon, stars, circular diagrams, medicinal herbs and recipes of some sort. To add to the mystery, most of the illustrations of plants and herbs have not been identified in the real world.
Next come the actual text with which the book is written. Many prominent cryptographers in history have tried to decode the text but no one has been able to decipher it so far. There have been claims by many people of doing so, but no one has translated even a meaningful amount.
Today, no one knows the purpose of this book, or the actual origin. Many have suggested that this might be a hoax but several others think that there might be meaning to its madness after all. Only time will tell.
Dancing Plague of 1518
From Wikimedia Commons by Pieter Brueghel the Elder.
If I would tell you that several centuries ago, people just started to dance one fine day to their deaths, and that nobody knows why, you would certainly say, “Bollocks!!”. Right?
Well that’s exactly what happened. According to stories, a woman by the name Mrs. Troffea just started dancing on the street in Strasbourg, in the month of July, 1518 and didn’t stop for four to six days. In just under a week, several others had joined her to dance non-stop.
Then within a month, 400 others joined and were largely females. A lot of these people died of heart attacks and exhaustion due to the non-stop dancing. Notes from the city council of Strasbourg confirm that these events actually took place.
The working theory suggested by experts is that of mass hysteria. But this has been challenged by others. To this day, no one is sure what caused all those people to dance to their deaths.
DB Cooper - The Unidentified Hijacker
From Wikimedia Commons.
In 1971, an unidentified man hijacked a Boeing 727 passenger plane claiming that he has a briefcase with a bomb in it. This was verified by one of the air stewardesses mid flight. He then went on to make his demands of $200,000 along with parachutes.
After the plane landed at the intended destination, he was given the money and the parachutes and then the passengers were released. Next he told the crew to set the plane on course to Mexico City only stopping for a refuel at Reno, Nevada.
On route to Mexico city, Cooper jumped off the plane from the rear airstairs and parachuted away into the night sky. Till today, no one knows of his whereabouts or whether he even survived the jump.
The FBI kept investigating the case until they finally decided to suspend active investigation in 2016.
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.
I think curiosity is the reason why there are so many mysteries in the first place. If no one cared, no one would have bothered to even look at these cases.
indeed
This's my first time on your profile. Hope we'll go long.
thank you so much!
"Dance to your death" sounds like something a really graphic poet would write.
It sure does! Add to that a really creepy laughter as well!!
Wow that dancing one is mad.
IKR its crazy LOL!!!
hehe, yeah!
Yeah!! It is so crazy!
Wow, fascinating stories. Thanks for the post. Very interesting
Yep indeed!!
The Zodiac killer is another one, they never caught him. I thought the Voynich case was solved tho? I remember looking at pics from that manuscript trying to figure out exactly what they were.
Yeah, I read about that too. Only 1 of his cryptic letters was ever solved by the police. No, the Voynich case hasn't been solved yet. People claim that they have done it but fail to translate the whole thing. At best they are only able to guess what the book could be about.
This is grate blog
Thanks!
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Thank you so much. Will check it out.
Thank You Saurav.
Woah...Every story has its own taste in it. The second story was wonderful to read. Exceptionally well. They never stopped dancing until death, it shows how frustrated they were and they felt too blissful while dancing and finally they embrace death.
The very last story: I was expecting that suitcase would have no bomb and that man would turn out to be a joker but I was proved wrong. He definitely survived that jump; Look at his dedication. I understand path was wrong but dedication has no affinity for the path. It can be shown in both ways.
Wonderful Mate, The way you have presented in your words. :-)
Lots of love
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Yeah, I tried to choose mysteries that were vastly different to one another. Thanks for the kind words :)
Yeah wonder how frustrated they were, to literally dance to their deaths. Or was it something else? Who knows!!
Yup, from what I've read, he seemed like a smart man and he very well could have survived the landing.
Dance is also one of 103 forms of meditation as invented by adiyogi. My Master says " Dance like Shiva and you can traverse the path ". Indeed, those women were at the highest potential of being human. Dance to their death or their liberation, Who knows?
:-)
Lots of love
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Thanks for this.