Who was Nostradamus?
Michel de Nostredame was a French physician, astrologer and author who published almanacs before becoming famous for Les Prophéties. Beginning in 1555, the work organized hundreds of four-line verses into groups called Centuries. The language mixes French with Latin, Greek, regional words, anagrams, astrological references and historical imagery. This density made the poems memorable—and extremely flexible.
Predictions attributed to Nostradamus
Readers have connected individual quatrains to the Great Fire of London, the French Revolution, Napoleon, Hitler, the world wars, Hiroshima, the death of Princess Diana and September 11. In most cases, the proposed connection became popular after the event.
The famous word “Hister” is often presented as a prediction of Hitler, although it was also an old geographical name associated with the lower Danube. Similar reinterpretations depend on rearranging names, changing translations or selecting only a few lines from a longer passage.
Timeline of Predictions
A chronological guide to the best-known predictions and the evidence status of each claim.
Great Fire of London
A quatrain mentioning blood, fire and London is retrospectively linked to the Great Fire. The proposed match depends on translation and interpretation.
French Revolution
Verses about common people, prisons and rulers are commonly connected to the Revolution more than two centuries after publication.
Rise of Hitler
The word “Hister” is treated as Hitler’s name by believers, although it was also a historical name for the lower Danube.
Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Images of fire, plague and destruction near cities are linked to the atomic bombs. No verse gives the cities and date together.
Moon landing
Supporters associate verses about reaching the Moon with Apollo 11. The language is symbolic rather than a precise technical forecast.
September 11 attacks
A widely shared “two steel birds” quotation was not written by Nostradamus. Genuine quatrains were also matched to the event after it happened.
Wars, plague and celestial fire
Yearly articles reinterpret old verses as forecasts of modern conflicts, disease and asteroids. Nostradamus did not organize the quatrains into this modern annual calendar.
What should readers check?
- The quatrains rarely supply an unambiguous date, place and event together.
- Translations vary, and small wording changes can make a verse resemble a modern headline.
- A prediction tested after the fact is vulnerable to selection bias: matches are remembered while hundreds of non-matches are ignored.
What about future predictions?
New “Nostradamus predictions” appear every year, usually by attaching current concerns—war, climate, disease or technology—to old verses. The authentic text is historically important, but interpretations are not the same as a documented forecast.
Sources and context
Sources may represent different viewpoints. Links are provided so readers can compare original organizations, reference works and critical reporting.