Nostradamus in Popular Culture - Supposed Prophecies

Supposed Prophecies

Nostradamus enthusiasts have credited him with predicting numerous events in world history, including the French Revolution, the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, the atomic bomb, the rise of Adolf Hitler, the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center, and the last pope. Indeed, they regularly make similar claims regarding each new world crisis as it comes along as there is a tendency to claim that "Nostradamus predicted whatever has just happened." These claims rely heavily on the role of interpretation.

One well-known supposed prophecy is that "a great and terrifying leader would come out of the sky" in 1999 and 7 months "to resuscitate the great King from Angoumois." But the phrase d'effraieur (of terror) in fact occurs nowhere in the original printing, which merely uses the word deffraieur (defraying, hosting), and Nostradamus sometimes uses the word ciel simply to mean 'region', rather than 'sky'. On the basis of Nostradamus's by-now well known technique of projecting past events into the future, Lemesurier suggests that X.72 therefore refers back to the restoration to health of the captive Francis I of France (who was Duke of Angoulême) following a surprise visit to his cell by his host, the then Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1525. No fewer than five of the planets were in the same signs on both occasions.