The UnXplained Special Presentation

A Renaissance prophet

who foresaw World War II.

A Siberian mystic

who warned about the fall of the Russian Empire.

And a divine encounter

between three small children...

and the Virgin Mary.

Throughout recorded history, numerous people

have claimed to receive glimpses of the future

that allowed them to predict--

and sometimes influence--

events that had not yet come to pass.

Is it really possible to foresee what tomorrow may hold?

And if so, can we use this information

about what lies ahead for the benefit of mankind?

Well, that is what we'll try and find out.

Astrologer and physician Michel de Nostradamus

publishes a volume of four-line poems called quatrains.

Readers at the time are confused

by the author's use of multiple languages, word puzzles,

and what was even then considered antiquated syntax.

But perhaps even more baffling

is the volume's title Les Prophéties--

The Prophecies.

Nostradamus had become

initially famous as a almanac writer.

You've got to understand

that this is during the time of the Printing Revolution

and he was one of its first best-selling authors.

And then he embarked on a history of the future,

which would look at everything

up to the year 3797 AD,

nearly 1,800 years from now, and beyond.

The Prophecies was initially met with

outright skepticism and derision.

Many believed Nostradamus to be either a fraud or mentally ill,

possibly both,

likely due to the fact that one of his verses

scandalously foretold of a particularly gory death

for Henry II, the king of France.

Nostradamus made a prediction about Henry II

dying in a jousting accident.

Quatrain 35 read that,

"A young lion would face the old in traditional combat.

"He shall be pierced through a gilded cage.

Two wounds made one."

The joust happened exactly as he foretold it.

Both men had lions on their shields.

Large shards went through the gilded visor of the king,

one penetrated his forehead into his brain,

the other in between his eye and socket, destroying his eye.

And he died of infection of the brain

ten days later, an agonizing death.

After the king's death, Nostradamus's reputation

as a seer of the future grew rapidly.

Which was, at the time, not necessarily a good thing.

It is well known that Nostradamus

concealed the nature of his prophecies,

which at that time was very politically incorrect

and could have gotten him in a lot of trouble.

He would come into great conflict

with the Church if he put himself on a pedestal

and be like Noah or Moses or people like this.

Despite the controversy, The Prophecies

eventually became one of the most widely read books

in the world.

It both astounded and terrified readers

with its predictions about dreadful events to come.

Is it possible Nostradamus received his prophetic visions

because he was in touch with a higher power?

It's an interesting theory

and could help explain how Nostradamus

was able to see and know things

that would not happen for centuries.

Things he was trying to warn us about.

With World War II wreaking havoc

throughout Europe and the Pacific,

it wasn't only the latest news

from the front lines making headlines,

but also Nostradamus and his prophecy

centering on the rise of a man named Hister.

What triggered his international fame

was a reference five times in his prophecies

about a man named Hister

with a Gothic "S," which has a "T" cross to it,

another "push push nudge nudge" perhaps in his work.

Hister is the ancient name of the river Danube.

Adolf Hitler grew up on the river Danube.

Nostradamus had a pattern of using a place as a person.

The river is a code

and the things that are said

in the other parts of the prophecies

indicate that it's a man.

The man who is called the "captain of greater Germany."

Is it possible

Nostradamus predicted the rise

of one of the most evil men in history?

According to many who have studied these quatrains,

the answer is yes. And as evidence,

they point to other things he foresaw.

Things that a person who lived and died in the 16th century

could never know would one day exist.

It's happened many times for me

when I want to just slap the book shut

and say, "Oh, come on."

And then names suddenly come out.

"A man named de Gaulle will lead France three times,"

and it's factually true.

Charles de Gaulle led the free French,

led the provisional government,

and then finally in his final years

was president of France three times.

And that's one of hundreds of things I can cite.

How does he do this?

Nostradamus is one of the most enduring names,

perhaps the most enduring name,

in post-Biblical prophecy.

His quatrains have been applied to hundreds

upon hundreds of events throughout history.

And people continue to feel

that they can learn what's around the next corner

by studying his quatrains.

Nostradamus fascinates us because it's perhaps

part of our fear instinct, isn't it?

When we're in difficult times, we turn to the seers,

we turn to the prophets to try to find out,

can they give some insight into these chaotic times we live in,

particularly in today's time?

If it's true that Nostradamus

was able to predict so many things

with such incredible accuracy,

why aren't we scouring his works in order to prevent

the next natural catastrophe or world war?

Perhaps because, as scholars of Nostradamus

have to admit, of the thousands of prophecies

he made over the course of his life,

only a small fraction have actually come true.

And even his seemingly accurate predictions

have been questioned.

We kind of have a double problem with Nostradamus

in some ways because some of the predictions are a bit vague

and people can project all sorts of things

into these vague predictions and then relate them

to something that's happening now.

But also sometimes they take

two completely unrelated sentences,

put them together, and it seems to relate

to something we have today.

The brain is a pattern-seeking,

learning machine.

It constantly sees patterns

even when they're not there.

Uh, in fact, there's a name for it-- apophenia.

We can't help it

because sometimes we were right.

Then we make leaps of logic. "What does he mean?"

"What did he really mean by that?"

And then we try to make sense of it

because that's what the brain does.

Are Nostradamus's predictions

merely the ramblings of a madman,

which people deliberately interpret

in order to fit history after the fact?

As with anything,

it all depends on who you ask.

What makes Nostradamus so relevant today

is that he's found a way

through his obscurity

to make everybody a "sleuth-sayer,"

a detective.

He understood that it would keep him topical

for four and a half centuries.

He even said that "when I'm dead,

"I will be far more famous

than I ever was while I'm alive."

Thousands of people gather to celebrate

the coronation of Czar Nicholas Romanov II

and his wife, the Empress Alexandra.

For more than 300 years,

the Romanov dynasty ruled the vast Russian Empire.

But Nicholas's reign would be a troubled one

during very troubling times.

Nicholas II, the last Romanov on the throne, was probably

the last person who ever should have been on the throne.

He was weak, indecisive, uh, passive.

And at the time, Russia was modernizing.

And so Nicholas was facing all sorts of challenges

from a society that wanted a greater voice

in politics and the economy.

But in fact Nicholas was dictatorial,

authoritarian, in many ways very brutal.

And he insisted on plunging the country

into what would become the First World War...

...and was never able to sort of guide

the political institutions into the modern era.

And-and he failed in just an epic, epic fashion.

Less than ten years into his reign,

Czar Nicholas was confronted

with worker strikes and military mutinies.

Russians across the country were upset