Miracle of the Sun: 70,000 Witness Fatima Apparition
Three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal, claimed the Virgin Mary had been appearing to them since May 1917 and predicted a miracle for October 13. Between 30,000 and 100,000 people gathered in a muddy field to watch. Witnesses, including secular journalists and skeptics, reported the sun appearing to dance, spin, and plunge toward earth. Photographs show the crowd staring upward, but the sky appears normal in every image. The Lisbon newspaper O Seculo ran a front-page account written by a reporter who had arrived intending to debunk the event. The Catholic Church investigated for thirteen years before declaring the apparitions 'worthy of belief' in 1930. Meteorologists have proposed atmospheric phenomena, mass suggestion, or retinal afterimages as explanations. The shrine at Fatima now receives 4 million pilgrims annually.
October 13, 1917
109 years ago
Key Figures & Places
What Else Happened on October 13
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