'Mercury retrograde' as a popular catch-all
Newspaper horoscopes of the 1970s–80s; internet meme from c. 2009
By the 1970s horoscopes were a newspaper mainstay and Mercury retrograde a recurring player in them (Mental Floss). By the 1980s, the historian Nicholas Campion told TIME, 'people started to apply it to everything'. Google searches for 'is Mercury in retrograde' grew virally from around 2009, with that year's social-media boom.
- Author
- Various
- Date
- 1970s–present
- Original language
- English
- Kind
- Popular culture
- Planets
- Mercury
Read it
No digitised copy known.
No digitised copy known.
Myths we don’t repeat
Checked, and left out.
- Myth 01
Not documented: 'Vox Stellarum, 19 December 1754' as the earliest print mention; the citation chain ends at a blog post that cannot be found.
- Myth 02
Not documented: Edith Custer's 1974 'Mercury Hour' newsletter as an early source.
- Myth 03
Not documented: an April 1979 Baltimore Sun warning, 'Don't start anything when Mercury is retrograde'.
References
Also on the Early modern and modern shelf
| Date | Source | Planets | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1632 | Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondoGalileo GalileiTheory / model | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Theory / model |
| 1647 | Christian AstrologyWilliam LillyAstrological | Me Ve Ma Ju Sa | Astrological |
| presented 7 August 1709 | Cassini's apparent path of MercuryJ. D. CassiniMath. astronomy | Me Ju Sa | Math. astronomy |
| 1756 (1st edition); many later editions | Astronomy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's PrinciplesJames FergusonTheory / model | Me Ve | Theory / model |
| late 19th century | Late-19th-century British astrology periodicalsVariousAstrological | Me | Astrological |
| plates 23 and 29 January 1930 | Pluto discovery platesClyde W. TombaughObservation | Pl | Observation |