Nostradamus & 1999

[gattino]

All this Mayan prophecy 2012 nonsense is familar to anyone over 30....I grew up with the universally known claim that the world would end in July 1999, on the basis Nostradamus said it would. Of course like the Mayan calendar thing pointing out that the prophecy in question said no such thing fell on deaf ears.

But still one thing that I've never heard or bothered to look up is did anything actually happen in July 1999 that has been alleged to fit the quatrain about he king of terror (or whatever it was) descending from the sky?

Since its one of the few of the prophecies of the no longer quite so famous Mr N that gave a specific date in our life times, surely it would settle the matter conclusively as to whether he saw any further into the future than the listings in the Radio Times.

So...does anyone know? Did anything fitting his prophecy happen in that month?

 

[Pete Younger]

The only thing that could remotely fit was this...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammed_VI_of_Morocco

 

[MercuryCrest]

I'm genuinely wondering if anyone has done the thing to check and see if the Russian invasion of Ukraine came up in any of his prophesies....

 

[charliebrown]

Not my area, but the internet talks about the quatrain of the “ three kings “ which is interpreted as Putin, Biden, and NATO.

 

[Kondoru]

None of whom are kings...

...Yes, I see the connection.

 

[AmStramGram]

Something significant happened, but not in July.

Let's go back to the "prophecy" :

L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois,
Du ciel viendra un grand Roy d'effrayeur:
Resusciter le grand Roy d'Angolmois,
Avant après Mars regner par bon heur.

The way it is written, it does not mention the month of July. It simply says "1999 seven months". Since there is no verb, there is no way to tell if the author speaks of the seventh month (which could be either July or September, since the latin calendar once started in March) or of a duration of seven months. We have no clue.

What we do know, on the other hand, is that Nostradamus was an astrologist (and a doctor, but here this does not matter). So he might simply allude to some astronomic or astrologic event he could forecast through calculation. This would explain why he boldly gave a date, something he rarely did.

"Du ciel viendra un grand roi d'effrayeur" = "From the Sky, a great frightful King will come"

This might allude to such an astronomic event, impressive and visible in the sky.

An obvious hypothesis is the total Solar eclipse of August 11th, visible in most of Northwest Europe.

As I said Nostradamus was an astrologist. So I checked what was the astral theme for August 11th, 12:00, using the first online calculator I found on the web. Guess what ? It appears that on that day, planet Mars was "in opposition" with Saturn, Saturn being the roman god of Time and Decay, it was a Grand Roi d'effrayeur indeed, as a symbol of the Grim Reaper. I am no expert but I suspect this is significant, especially since Mars is also mentioned in the quatrain.

Yes. August is neither in July nor in September, and the Solar eclipse did not last for seven months, but Nostradamus lived in the 16th century. So perhaps he got it wrong in his calculations. Or perhaps he found that "seven" sounded better than eight or six.

Honestly, I do not believe he was a prophet. He wasn't a great poet either. In French, his quatrains are usually very boring. So I would not be surprised if his calculation skills were not good enough to forecast an eclipse with an error margin of under 24 hours (11 days in this case) ...

Now if you believe he was a prophet, you may note that Vladimir Putin became chief of the russian gouvernement on August 9th, 1999, a few days before the eclipse, and that the second War of Chechenia started on October 1st, that is after seven months, in the latin calendar (starting in March). An etymology of the name Vladimir is "Ruler of Glory" or "Ruler of the World", which is not so far from "Ruler of Fright", a fitting nickname, by the way, for someone known for his violent methods. I do not see, however, what the "ressuscitation of the King of Angulmois" has to do with this.

 

[AmStramGram]

Update : it suddenly struck me that Nostradamus wrote his "Centuries" before the advent of the Gregorian calendar (in 1582).

So August 11th 1999 (solar eclipse) or August 9th 1999 (Putin's rise to power) would correspond respectively to July 27th and July 29th in terms of Nostradamus' Julian calendar.

In other words, these events indeed occurred during a "seventh month". They would thus both fit his poem about 1999. Even better, "L'an mil neuf cens nonante neuf sept mois", e.g. "In the year 1999, seven months" could mean "In the year 1999, after seven months" which could point to a date at the end of July, in the gregorian calendar.

With lots of imagination, we could hypothetize that the heaven's referred in the next sentence of the poem allude to Saint Petersburg. Saint Peter is indeed traditionaly envisioned as the holder of the keys of paradise. So heavens are his "burg". Therefore, "Du ciel viendra un grand Roy d'effrayeur:" could mean "from Saint Petersburg will come a Great Awesome King". As previously said, the etymology of the name Vladimir is close to "Awesome Ruler". So if we were to believe that Nostradamus was a prophet, it could allude to his coming to power.

"Avant après Mars regner par bon heur" could allude to opportunistic wars ("bon heur", in two words, means "good occasion"), which would also fit Putin's aggresive moves in the Caucasus, Syria and Ukraine.

The only sentence which doesn't fit this interpretation is the third one, since I haven't heard of any decesased king having come back to life in Angoulême ! But perhaps that's Putin next "Wonder Weapon" : undead zombies !