“The greater part of the battlefield will be against Hister/ Into a cage of iron will the great one be drawn/ When the child of Germany observes nothing.”
This may be the most famous prophecy made by Nostradamus. There isn’t much of a narrative to it, but there are some words that lead the modern reader on a very specific path: battlefield, Germany, and Hister. Sure, Hitler isn’t fully there, but you have to admit that “Hister” is pretty close. That being said, it’s hard to extract any coherent message from the rest of it.
“Earthshaking fire from the center of the Earth/ Will cause tremors around the New City/ Two great rocks will war for a long time…”
This Nostradamus prophecy made waves right after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers. Sure, the “New City” could be New York, but the first part sounds more like an earthquake rather than an aerial attack. Those who side with Nostradamus would also say that the “two great rocks” are the fallen towers, but the doubters would say that’s a serious stretch.
“Near the gates and within two cities/ There will be scourges the like of which was never seen/ Famine within plague, people put out by steel…”
Nostradamus fans take this quatrain as the prediction of the bombing of Japan. Others would say they see nothing to signify the Hiroshima/Nagasaki atom bombs. Those who want to read into it as a prediction would say that Japan did experience a food shortage after the atom struck and that the radiation cause illnesses that could be the quoted “plague”. Then again, couldn’t this apply to any post-war country? We’ll leave it to you to decide.