Episode 3.8 // Get Down with the Sickness, It’s Societal Mania!

Throughout history, flashes of group mania have taken hold of entire societies without warning. From dancing 'til you're dead, to laughing yourself into a stupor for days on end, the people struck down by these so-called plagues certainly weren’t having a good time, despite what might seem like a non-stop party attitude. One thing has perplexed researchers to this day: what is behind this mysterious phenomenon?

SOURCES:

• 6 Reasons To Visit Strasbourg, France: Cradle Of Alsatian Culture - Forbes

• Alsace: culturally not quite French, not quite German | British Council

• Medieval and Early Modern Approaches to the 1518 Strasbourg Dancing Plague - Lynneth J. Miller - Dance Research - Edinburgh University Press - 2017

• The Bizarre Dance Epidemic of Summer 1518 -The Guardian - John Waller - Jul 5 2018

• The Dancing Plague of 1518 – The Public Domain Review - Ned Pennant-Rea - Jul 10, 2018

• Inside The Dancing Plague Of 1518, History's Strangest Epidemic - All That's Interesting

• A Forgotten Plague: Making Sense of Dancing Mania - The Lancet - John Waller - Feb 21, 2009

• What Is Mass Psychogenic Illness? | AAFP

• A Very Short History of Tanzania - Thought Co

• Top 15 Facts About Tanzania - Visa First

• An Epidemic of Laughing… - Rankin and Philip - Central African Journal of Medicine - May 1963

• Examining 1962's 'laughter epidemic - The Chicago Tribune - Simone Sebastian July 29, 2003

• The 1962 Laughter Epidemic of Tanganyika - Atlas Obscura - Tao Tao Holmes - Jan 15, 2016

• Not Funny: The 1962 Tanganyika Laughing Epidemic … - History Daily - Karen Harris - May 28, 2021

TRANSCRIPT:

Let's Dance!

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