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These Insane Viral Trends and Fads Overtook History Long Before the Internet

Khalid Elhassan July 13, 2022 37 min

Viral - Marathon dancers in 1923 — Marathon dancers in 1923. Library of Congress

7. An Aimless Wanderer Mistakenly Arrested for Terrorism

A medical examination of Jean Albert Dadas. Mental Floss

Jean Albert Dadas’ dromamania became the subject of a nineteenth-century medical doctoral dissertation. From Berlin, he continued on into the Russian Empire and ended up in Moscow. There, he was arrested on suspicion of radical terrorism – he was unlucky to arrive soon after Tsar Alexander II had been assassinated. The authorities did not believe his explanations for why he was in the Russian Empire. However, they found no evidence linking him to terrorism or radicalism and simply ordered him expelled.

Dadas ended up walking all the way to Constantinople. There, he was assisted by the French Consulate, which arranged for him to travel to Vienna. He settled in the Austrian capital for some time, before he hit the road again. He finally returned to France, worn out and a bit incoherent, in 1886. His case gained widespread publicity. From the mid-1880s until around 1909, his example was emulated by numerous Frenchman, who gave in to an uncontrollable urge to travel.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.