###The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic
Tanganyika, 1962 to 1963 — A stress-driven chain reaction of uncontrollable laughing and crying forced authorities to shut down schools across the country.
On January 30, 1962, three students at a highly disciplined mission-run boarding school in Tanganyika suddenly fell into fits of uncontrollable laughing and crying. The girls weren't faking. They were experiencing mass psychogenic illness, a bizarre medical chain reaction where severe psychological stress causes real physical symptoms.
Because humans naturally mimic each other, witnessing the distress caused a domino effect. The nervous laughter spread to 95 students, forcing the Kashasha Girls' Middle School to shut its doors in March. Hoping to stop the outbreak, officials sent the girls back to their home villages.
It was a massive mistake. The students accidentally carried the contagious anxiety home, sparking identical outbreaks of laughing, crying, and fainting in neighboring communities. The epidemic raged in intermittent waves for 18 months before the collective stress finally faded away and the laughter stopped.
The Tanganyika Laughter Epidemic — Tanganyika, 1962 to 1963