In 410 BC The first known horoscope was devoted to someone born on this date. 10 things you might not know about horoscopes:
For the most part, the origins of horoscopes are lost in the mists of time, but most people believe astrology originated in the ancient Babylonian empire. A few scholars suggest it might have been Ancient Egyptians who cast the first horoscopes.
The origin of the word is the Latin word horoscopus which translates as "observer of the hour”.
The noun horoscopy for "casting of horoscopes" has been in use since the 17th century.
The individual who was the subject of this first known horoscope was the son of Shumu-usur, Shumu-iddina. It states: “At that time the Moon was below the Pincer of the Scorpion, Jupiter in Pisces, Venus in Taurus, Saturn in Cancer, Mars in Gemini. Mercury, which had set was not visible. Things will be propitious for you.”
So what about the horoscopes in the Newspapers? These date back to around the 1930s and the first one is credited to a man named R.H. Naylor. He was the assistant to an astrologer called Cheiro (real name William Warner) who was famous for casting celebrity horoscopes and reading palms. Mark Twain, Grover Cleveland, and Winston Churchill had all been his subjects. In August 1930 the Sunday Express wanted Cheiro to cast a horoscope for the newest royal baby of the time, Princess Margaret. He wasn’t available, as it happened, and so Naylor stepped in. The British public liked the princess’s horoscope and so the paper asked Naylor for more predictions.
Soon after, one of his articles predicted that “a British aircraft will be in danger” between October 8 and 15. A British airship crashed outside Paris on October 5, killing 48 of the 54 people on board, and people took it as evidence that Naylor really know what he was talking about. The editor of the paper offered Naylor a weekly column.
At first, it consisted of predictions for people whose birthdays fell during the week, but the editor in due course decided he wanted something that would appeal to more people. By 1937, the horoscope as we would recognise it today, using sun signs, had become a regular feature.
Astrologer Jonathan Cainer called it a “vast over-simplification of a noble, ancient art,” although it has to be said that as the author of the horoscopes in the Daily Mail he’s not done too badly out of it. He mainly criticised the columns which weren’t written by astrologers but by writers who were told by their editors to read a book on Astrology and get on with it.
How come horoscopes in newspapers and magazines have lasted so long? Readers like them, and will read them simply because they are there. In fact, readers have been known to react badly to horoscopes being dropped, or even moved to a different section of the paper.
Studies have shown that between 12% and 23% of Americans read their horoscope every day and 32% admit to doing so occasionally. Margaret Hamilton, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin found that people are more likely to believe favourable horoscopes.
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