Latest / Ebbs of History / When Laughing Was Contagious
Transcript
- Jason: Lessons we've learned today. Time for the Fun Fact Challenge! speaker-1: Welcome to the ebbs of history, show where we dive into the strangest, wildest, and sometimes downright creepiest stories the past has to offer. ⁓ From dancing plagues to pirate queens, you'll laugh, you'll gasp, and you'll even groan at my dad jokes. ⁓ But, most importantly, Jason: This day in History! speaker-1: you'll learn how history is way cooler than your textbook ever told you. We're your history loving hosts, and I'm Jason, and in every episode of Three, the two of us will take a quick trip through time and see what lessons we can still learn today. This is the ebbs of history. speaker-0: Gavin. speaker-1: Hey there history lovers, welcome back to another episode of ebbs of history. We're so glad you're here with us today. We do not have Zoe with us today. She's a very busy, busy girl. Yep. So Gavin, how was your week? Good. speaker-0: Uh, not much really. I'm trying to think. Yeah, really nothing so far. speaker-1: Yeah, it's just dealing with some personal stuff and we finally lost that trivia last night. ⁓ It would have been our seventh in a row. It would have. But some information was sent my way that the question that we missed that made us lose was a bad question and our answer was correct. ⁓ Huh? Yep. speaker-0: ⁓ we did. What? speaker-1: Yeah, so my week's okay. Been very busy at work. We got some personal stuff going on tomorrow that we gotta take care of and I still have no front teeth. But I'm getting better at speaking without my front teeth, so there. I'll be getting new ones pretty soon, so I'm looking forward to that. ⁓ new teeth. ⁓ today's topic. speaker-0: Brand new teeth. speaker-1: Imagine you're sitting in class one ordinary morning when suddenly the girl next to you starts laughing. Then another student starts. Then another. Before you know it, half the class is in hysterics and nobody can stop. This isn't a comedy show gone wrong. This is what actually happened in 1962 in a small village in East Africa and it spread like wildfire for over a year. Today we're diving into the Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic, a bizarre outbreak that shut down 14 schools and left doctors completely baffled. Have you ever heard of this, Kevin? speaker-0: No, I haven't heard this actually. I've heard of the Dancing Plague. Sounds kind of similar. speaker-1: that were doing this and they were like, wow, I've never heard of that. So, should be a good one. All right, January 30th, 1962 in the small village of Kashasha in Tanganyika, which is now part of Tanzania, a mission run boarding school for girls set in the lush green countryside near Lake Victoria. The school serves about 159 students living far from their families in a nation that had only just become independent. Tengeyika had thrown off British colonial rule in December of 1961. The entire country was still that uneasy in-between moment where the flag is new, but the systems aren't. Schools like this were often still run on colonial era rules and expectations. with strict discipline, high pressure to perform, and a curriculum shaped by missionary and British models. students, it could mean being caught between worlds, ⁓ and tradition at home, and Western institutional environment at school, right as the wider society was also trying to figure out what independence would actually feel like day to day. Now, that part's a little bit off topic. but it's important for this story, so that's why I put it in here. So remember what's going on in the wider world at this time for these girls, okay? morning, something strange happens. Three girls start laughing during class. Not polite little giggles, ⁓ uncontrollable, breathless laughter. The kind where you're gasping for air and your stomach hurts. What would be going through your mind if you saw someone laughing like that? speaker-0: I would be like, what are they doing? Goodos. speaker-1: Would you think it was funny? speaker-0: Well, not really. Especially after a bit. at the start you think it's a joke, but then they just keep going and it's like, okay. speaker-1: Not if it's uncontrollable, Yeah. Witnesses described the laughter as distressing and exhausting. The girls couldn't control it. They couldn't concentrate on their lessons. Some were crying, screaming, or fainting and had difficulty breathing. Many complained of pain or nausea and flatulence. draining. The teachers tried to calm them down, but it doesn't work. The laughter continues for hours. Then it starts spreading. By the end of the day, more girls are laughing. By the end of the week, dozens are affected. The laughter attacks come in waves, lasting anywhere from a few hours to several days for each girl. speaker-0: God, that is terrible. Several days just laughing? speaker-1: Imagine laughing for seven, you know, several days. Just seven, throwing off seven up top of my head. speaker-0: Like on and like there's no stop. Yeah, how do you eat? speaker-1: Eat how you eat how do you breathe? mean in your I know when we go and see a funny movie or Theater show or whatever my stomach hurts the next day from laughing Can you imagine and that's only for like two or three hours? Yeah, imagine doing it for days on end speaker-0: be terrible. speaker-1: The teaching staff, interestingly, were completely unaffected. They watched in confusion as their students lost control one by one. Do you think the teachers thought the girls were faking it, Kevin? speaker-0: No and yes because like it's uncontrollable like they probably heard that like this is going on for hours and days on end and no student would ever do that willingly. speaker-1: and they're crying. Right. You do it for a little bit to get out of doing something, but you eventually stop. By mid-march a month and a half later 95 of the 159 students had been affected The school couldn't function anymore classes were impossible So on March 18th 1962 the administration made the difficult decision to close the school and send everyone home problem solved right Send the girls home. Let them rest reopen the school. Except that's when things got even stranger. The girls returned to their home villages. They brought the laughter with them. Parents and siblings started laughing uncontrollably. Then neighbors, then entire villages. The epidemic jumped from Kshasa to nearby communities like Nshamba. speaker-0: ⁓ no. speaker-1: where 217 people, mostly young villagers, had laughing attacks over 34 days in April and May. What would you do if all of your family, all of us, just suddenly couldn't stop laughing? speaker-0: including me. I'd be confused and like, kind of angry and sad. speaker-1: including you. I just, I'd be beside myself. don't know, I wouldn't know what to do. The Kashashna school tried to reopen on May 21st thinking the worst was over. Within weeks, 57 more students were affected. The school closed again at the end of June and stayed closed for the rest of the year. speaker-0: here. speaker-1: But by now, the laughter epidemic had taken on a life of its own. It spread to other schools in the region. Middle schools, primary schools, even some adults in the villages. Over the next several months, 14 schools in the Bukoba district were forced to close. estimates that around a thousand people were eventually affected. symptoms varied from person to person. Most common was the uncontrollable laughter, but many also experienced crying, screaming, restlessness, random aggressive behavior, difficulty breathing, rashes, and fainting. speaker-0: ⁓ my god, that's terrible. speaker-1: Episodes could last anywhere from a few hours to 16 days with the average being about 7. speaker-0: 16 days or 7? Oh my god. speaker-1: On average it was 7. Doctors and health officials rushed to the region to investigate. They ran tests, they looked for viruses, bacteria, environmental contaminants, anything that could explain why an entire region was laughing itself sick. They found nothing. No infectious agent, no toxin, no physical cause. What do you think caused this? Just, you know, I wanna gauge what you've been caused this, now that you know some things about- speaker-0: Because of what you said at start, like the stress and like pressure of like the school system and just like getting the grades that is considered like acceptable and good. speaker-1: How stressed out do you get when you're doing school stuff? You're much better now than you used to be. You used to get super stressed over school work. really? You remember. wasn't that long ago. You've gotten so much better. speaker-0: Were you stressed out? Really? Yeah. ⁓ yeah. Especially when I have like bad grades, like I'm like really stressed out. speaker-1: It's gotten better over time, I think, because it's not new to you anymore. You know, when you transitioned from into middle school, that's when it was the worst. Yeah. And that is no surprise whatsoever. It's stressful being in a new place. And so that's what these girls are going through, Their country has become newly independent. They have no idea what the future holds. Yeah. It's pretty stressful. Interestingly, this epidemic followed a pattern. It primarily affected adolescent girls and young women in schools and or other institutional settings. Adult men were rarely affected. Teachers and older authority figures almost never called it either. The laughter seemed to respect social boundaries in a way that a virus or bacteria never would. The epidemic also had a strange geographic pattern. It spread along social networks from student to parent, from one village to connected villages, but it never jumped to completely unconnected areas. It followed the paths that people walked, the schools they attended, the families they visited. speaker-0: That makes sense. kind of like contagious in a way. You know? Although it's not like bacteria or viruses, it's still kind of contagious. speaker-1: It's like a psychological Yeah, Jen. Yeah, absolutely So these girls started it You know started in their heads and it just kind of spread it's kind of what they think happened during the dancing plague, too Yeah, you know all this stuff it It happened speaker-0: out. Yeah. We over that in the Dancing Plague episode. That's right. It's like the exact same thing. speaker-1: Things like this happen over and over again in history and I wanted to point out that ⁓ it wasn't just in the middle ages that things like this happen because you we do focus heavily on the middle ages that's just my what I like. speaker-0: That's you and Allah has she happened then speaker-1: Exactly, but this is 1962. Yeah, you know like Grandma and Grandpa were alive at this time. Yes. It's not that long ago at all Yeah speaker-0: Yes, I assume. I feel like when you hear this, seems like something that wouldn't be in the time that it is. Right. Like, yeah. Like, you don't hear often about especially like new countries being formed. Even in the 60s. it had definitely slowed down very very now than what it was, say, in the Middle Ages. speaker-1: Exactly. That's true. It's rare, for sure. Well, this is a time where a lot of the colonial things that countries did like Britain and France and the Netherlands, you know, they're starting to release their control on what they had control over at one point. Yeah. So you don't hear about it much because, know, the Western world. Focus on it and these countries really don't want to remember their colonializing past. Yeah, really. speaker-0: doesn't really focus on them. speaker-1: By the summer of 1963, 18 months after it began, the laughter epidemic finally burned itself out. Schools reopened, life returned to normal, and nobody had died. Which was perhaps the most remarkable thing about the whole ordeal. speaker-0: think ⁓ at least like one person would have died from like exhaustion or like lack of ⁓ ⁓ know, because you're laughing constantly ⁓ you can't get a breath in speaker-1: Yeah, well what happened during the dancing pec- epidemic, do you ⁓ remember that? People died, had, some of them had heart attacks. You died from exhaustion, again, it was the middle ages, so you know, they didn't really have medicine or anything back then. you know, medical anything. But still! speaker-0: People died. People died. People People People People People People People People I feel like that this is something that can't really be treated with medicine, you know? speaker-1: You can't treat the actual thing, but you can treat all the side effects of it. speaker-0: Yeah, that's true. Other medical side effects of the psychological... speaker-1: But what actually happened? ⁓ Why did 1000 people spend a year and a half laughing uncontrollably? The answer, it turns out wasn't medical. ⁓ was psychological. speaker-0: HISTYOGRAPHY! speaker-1: The Tanganyika laughter epidemic was first formally documented by Dr. A.M. Rankin and Dr. Philippe in 1963 medical journal articles. This remains a primary source document, though many retellings have exaggerated or misunderstood the details. For decades, the event was cited as an example of contagious laughter or even blamed on environmental factors or viruses. But modern researchers, particularly psychologists studying mass psychogenic illness, have re-examined the evidence. A 2009 paper by Christian Hempelman clarified that this wasn't actually about humor or a disease, but rather a case of mass psychogenic illness. That's exactly right. Where psychological stress manifests as physical symptoms that spread through social networks. speaker-0: or MS hysteria. speaker-1: The historical context matters enormously in this case. Tanganyika gained independence from the British colonial rule in December of 61, just weeks before the epidemic began. The entire society was in flux, dealing with new governance structures, educational reforms, and uncertainty about the future. Young people in mission schools that were away from their parents were caught between traditional African culture and Western colonial education systems experiencing immense pressure and stress. This context helps us understand why the epidemic emerged when and where it did. speaker-0: I mean, the amount of stress and change you go through when a new country is formed, and this is only weeks after it was formed. The effects are still booming throughout the entire country. speaker-1: Absolutely, they don't know what's going to happen. They don't know if the government that they put into place is even going to last. We take for granted that we've been a country here for 250 years. And in the grand scheme of things, that's not very long at all. They are weeks into their new country. Their minds couldn't handle it. speaker-0: No, not at all. There is probably more time from now and the end of the school year than the creation of the country and then. Yeah. speaker-1: It was weeks, Weeks? speaker-0: Like, amount of time, if not shorter amount of time. They feel like that's a pretty good comparison. speaker-1: So, what can we take away from this bizarre chapter of history? Any ideas? ⁓ speaker-0: Stress can cause crazy things. speaker-1: Yes, physical things. It can create speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ can, weird to say, stress can manifest in ⁓ many different ways. speaker-1: And one of those ways is... Physical. speaker-0: physical like laughing constantly. speaker-1: guess crying would be a physical manifestation, that's kind of normal. Yeah. This is. ⁓ speaker-0: This is, yeah, this is way out of the ordinary. Crying is a normal response. It is normal. It's way more common of a response than laughing uncontrollably. speaker-1: laughing uncontrollably. Who? Mom. That's a physical manifestation of the nervousness. It's not wrong or anything like that. It's just different than, Social context shapes outbreaks. This is not the first one in history that we've even talked about on this podcast. This speaker-0: We've mentioned the dancing plague multiple times so far. mean we mentioned it technically every episode in the intro. speaker-1: That's true. When communities face collective stress in closed environments like this, mass hysteria or mass psychogenic illness becomes possible. Yeah. Similar outbreaks have occurred in factories and convents and schools across history. And there's other examples, just the dancing plague. ⁓ I think we talked about it at the end of that episode where there was that school where the girls all had tics and twitching out of nowhere and it was like in New York something. ⁓ they said it was, what was it caused by like, it was social media that started it and it just kind of grew from there, you know? So there's been many times throughout history that this has happened. So. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, I remember speaker-1: Alright, time for the fun fact challenge. Since it's just you and me, Gavin, you automatically win. Congratulations. speaker-0: I won Put playing against myself at this point speaker-1: So there's no need to lock in, just give me your answers. ⁓ Question one. How many students were initially enrolled at the Kshasa school where the epidemic began? speaker-0: Was it 155 or 195? speaker-1: You're close with the first one and I'm gonna give it to you. I'll give you a range of five and you get it. Okay. ⁓ It's 159. Yep, you're close. You got the two mixed up. But you got it. One for one. two. How many schools in the region were eventually forced to close due to the laughter epidemic? Close. 14 schools, correct. And last one. Can you sweep it and go three for three? speaker-0: 59, okay. Yeah, I was like... 14 schools were forced to speaker-1: Approximately how long did the entire epidemic last before it finally ended? speaker-0: months correct let's go I sweat myself speaker-1: from January of 62 to mid 1963. On this day, May 14th, in 1607, English colonists established Jamestown, Virginia, the first permanent English settlement in North America. speaker-0: That's like a huge step for speaker-1: 1607 so that's what 400 420 years 419 years ago. That's nuts Though plagued by disease, starvation, and conflict with indigenous peoples, Jamestown survived and became the foundation for English colonization of the continent. The settlement nearly failed multiple times in its early years, but persevered to become a crucial foothold for British imperial ambitions 1796. English physician. That's a hard word with no front teeth. English physician Edward Jenner administered the first smallpox vaccination to eight-year-old James Phipps using material from cowpox blisters. That sounds disgusting. speaker-0: position Yeah, but it probably worked, speaker-1: It did. This groundbreaking experiment launched the era vaccination and eventually lead to the complete eradication of smallpox in 1980. His work saved hundreds of millions of lives and transformed public health forever. How ⁓ he up with this? ⁓ He took pus and ooze from a cowpox blister. ⁓ speaker-0: That's crazy. don't know. And made it a vaccine to fix a different smallpox We went over like smallpox effects on North America when Europe first made contact with people in North America and how smallpox was like a silent killer. Yeah, like even though speaker-1: Yeah. It's mindbuckling. speaker-0: Europe may have lost the battle. North America was the real loser because they got all this disease, especially smallpox. speaker-1: What years are we talking about here was like 1800 1600? speaker-0: I think like when we first made contact with like North Americans and like Yeah, like around there. Yeah speaker-1: like the 1600 like the establishment of Jamestown in 1607. speaker-0: I maybe a bit earlier, but yeah, like, disease is crazy. speaker-1: Yeah, and for almost 200 years, didn't have a cure for it from that time. finally in 1804, this one is especially for our friend, Mosif. The Lewis and Clark expedition officially began as Barry Weather Lewis and William Clark. I can't even finish this without laughing. William Clark left St. Louis to explore the newly acquired Louisiana territory. Over the next two years, they would travel thousands of miles to the Pacific Ocean and back mapping territory, documenting wildlife and establishing American claims to Western lands, forever changing the course of Western westward expansion. Gavin, quick question. What trail did they take? speaker-0: The Oregon Trail. speaker-1: For our listeners out there that have no idea what's going on, we do trivia every Tuesday and one of our trivia mates, Mo, we call him Moosef, ⁓ had the right answer and we answered Northwest Passage, which he was right, but they said it was the Oregon Trail. ⁓ So I couldn't pass this one up for today's This Day in History. speaker-0: Now whenever we say Awakentrail he's just like ugh he gets so mad. speaker-1: Every time I think of the Oregon Trail, I think of him. I know. when a thousand people can't stop laughing, history is trying to tell us something about stress, about power, and the unbreakable bond between mind and body. ⁓ it for this episode. ⁓ for traveling through time with us on the ebbs of history. ⁓ you liked today's story, share it with a teacher. a friend or your family on Instagram at ebbsofhistory. you have any show ideas, corrections, or questions, You can contact us at questions at ebbsofhistory.com. speaker-0: Signing off, this has been your co-host, not host. speaker-1: I'm a host too! Where's two of them? ⁓ cool. Okay, speaker-0: No, but co-host. Signing off, this has been your co-host Gavin. speaker-1: And me, Jason, reminding you that history is not just about dates and battles. It's about people, curiosity, and the weird wonderful choices that shaped our world. Until next time, keep wondering, keep learning through the abs of history. speaker-0: Keep laughing. Next tree.