Case file · Non-fiction & research literature
The 'Great Prophecies of Nostradamus' boom
Ben Gotō's 1973 best-seller 'Nostradamus no Daiyogen' persuaded millions of Japanese readers that the world would face catastrophe in July 1999.
1973 CE · 35.70, 139.76 · status: official
The account
The book sold over two million copies in its first years, inspired a 1974 film and fed an end-of-the-world mood through the 1990s, which new religions such as Aum Shinrikyō exploited.
The sceptical view
Scholars of Nostradamus find Gotō's readings loose and invented; July 1999 passed without disaster.