The Dancing Plague of 1518

In the summer of 1518, hundreds of people in Strasbourg began dancing uncontrollably in the streets. Some collapsed from exhaustion. Some reportedly died. No music. No celebration. Just an unstoppable compulsion that spread through the city.

Was it mass hysteria, poisoning, religious belief, or something we still don’t understand?

In this episode of Still Unexplained, we explore the strange historical record of the Dancing Plague of 1518 and the competing explanations that have followed it for centuries. It’s a story where medicine, psychology, culture, and belief collide, leaving behind a mystery that refuses to settle into a single answer.