I recently explored 2022’s Jupiter-Neptune conjunction (link here).
While working on that post, I started researching the major historical events that occurred during these conjunctions. I discovered that they very closely coincide with the metaphorical framework I described in that post: these are periods when Dreamings – of individuals, cultures, places, organizations and nations – are on full display.
Jupiter-Neptune conjunctions are times where themes of nationalism and other forms of devotion and loyalty to particular groups, especially based on race and ethnicity, are very prevalent. At its best, these periods see advancements in human rights. At worst, they spawn extreme social and political movements, particular far-left socialist ones. This conjunction has marked key developments in the history of women’s suffrage, African-American rights, and European ethno-nationalist conflicts.
These periods also correspond to major developments in motion picture technology and broadcasting. Other common areas of innovation during Jupiter-Neptune conjunctions include medicine and drugs (including cigarettes and alcohol), travel and exploration, and nuclear technology. Fraud, robbery and other illicit activities are also prevalent.
As I compiled this list, I was struck by the common themes coming up again and again with each cycle, which occurs approximately every 12-13 years (the time it takes for Jupiter to orbit the sun). There’s clear evidence of the various manifestations of Jupiter Dreaming (truth, justice, expansion, abundance) united with Neptune Dreaming (fantasy, illusion, dreams, delusion, psychosis).
We are in such a time right now, as Jupiter is moving to conjoin Neptune – the exact conjunction is on April 12, 2022 at 23°58’ Pisces. We’ve already seen these themes present, particularly with the developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict and its strong element of ethno-nationalism. There have been hints of nuclear involvement there too, whether real or imagined – again, very Neptunian.
I’m sure we’ll be given ample more examples of this transit over the next few months. For now, let’s look through history.
- May, July and December 2009 in Aquarius
- Bitcoin network created
- Global financial crisis; many countries enter and exit recession
- Barack Obama becomes first African-American U.S. president; wins Nobel Peace Prize
- end of 26-year civil war in Sri Lanka
- H1N1 swine flu declared global pandemic
- Financier Bernie Madoff sentenced to 150 years in US maximum prison for conducting a massive Ponzi scheme
- Avatar becomes highest-grossing film of all time; filmed using new motion capture filming techniques
- January 1997 in Capricorn
- Rupert Murdoch launches Fox News Channel
- Howard Stern radio show premieres
- Boerge Ousland of Norway becomes first person to cross Antarctica alone and unaided
- OJ Simpson found responsible for deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman in civil trial
- UK returns Hong Kong to China
- January 1984 in Capricorn
- Brinks-Mat robbery: 26 million pounds sterling of gold, diamonds and cash stolen
- France, US and USSR perform nuclear tests
- First visit to Lutheran church by a pope
- Apple computer unveils Macintosh personal computer
- Rwandan genocide
- AIDS virus identified
- January, May and September 1971 in Sagittarius
- Cigarette ads banned from U.S. TV
- Former Beatles musician George Harrison releases first solo single “My Sweet Lord” which tops the charts in 15 countries and becomes subject of a copyright infringement lawsuit
- The Beatles’ “Helter Skelter” is played at Charles Manson trial; Manson and three women followers convicted of murder
- Wilmington Ten are wrongfully convicted after escalating race-based conflict in Wilmington, North Carolina
- American astronaut Alan Shepard is first to hit a golf ball on the moon
- Peak period of violence during The Troubles, Northern Ireland ethno-nationalist conflict
- September 1958 in Scorpio
- Mao Zedong starts the “Great Leap Forward” movement in China
- US Supreme Court orders all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas to integrate
- First radio broadcast from space: US president Eisenhower’s Christmas message “to all mankind, America’s wish for peace on Earth and goodwill to men everywhere”
- First color video recording on magnetic tape presented
- Things Fall Apart by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe published – considered most widely read book in African literature
- Iceland expands its fishing zone, putting it into conflict with the United Kingdom, beginning the Cod Wars
- September 1945 in Libra
- Soviet troops liberate Auschwitz and Birkenau Concentration Camps in Poland
- S. drops nuclear bombs on Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
- V-Day: end of World War II
- USSR establishes a communist government in North Korea
- Vietnam conflict begins as Ho Chi Minh leads a successful coup
- Microwave oven patented by US inventor Percy Spencer
- Chinese civil war begins between Kuomintang government led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong’s Communist Party
- Founding of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
- International Monetary Fund formally established by 29 member countries
- September 1932 in Virgo
- After flying for 17 hours from Newfoundland, Amelia Earhart lands near Londonderry, Northern Ireland, becoming the first transatlantic solo flight by a woman
- Horror films “White Zombie” and “The Mummy” are released; first feature-length zombie and mummy films
- BBC begins experimental regular TV broadcasts and begins transmitting overseas
- Adolf Hitler appointed as Reich Chancellor of Germany and forms government
- S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt inaugurated and pledges to pull US out of the Depression: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself”
- Dachau, the first Nazi concentration camp, is completed
- September 1919, March and April 1920 in Leo
- Treaty of Versailles, ending WWI and establishing the League of Nations, is signed in France
- Anti-Cigarette League of America forms in Chicago, Illinois
- KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, oldest existing airline, is established
- Volstead Act passed by US Congress, establishing Prohibition – banning alcohol
- First assembly of the League of Nations is held in Paris
- Home Rule Act passed by the British Parliament, dividing Ireland into two parts; it is rejected by the southern counties, where the Ango-Irish war continues for a year
- Joan of Arc canonized a saint
- America ratifies 19th Amendment to the constitution, allowing women’s suffrage
- May 1907 in Cancer
- Ellis Island immigration center hits record number of people processed
- Bubonic plague breaks out in San Francisco, California
- Guglielmo Marconi’s company begins the first commercial transatlantic wireless service between Glace Bay, Nova Scotia, Canada and Clifden, Ireland
- June 1894 in Gemini
- Japanese scientist Shibasaburo Kitasato discovers the infectious agent of the bubonic plague and publishes his findings in The Lancet
- Vaccine for diphtheria announced by Dr Roux of Paris
- First public showing of Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope (moving pictures)
- Coca-Cola is sold in bottles for the first time; original recipe included cocaine
- June 1881 in Taurus
- Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company
- Feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is first published in Paris by activist Hubertine Auclert
- Canadian Pacific Railway Act receives the Royal Assent to build rail line across Canada
- Kansas becomes first state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages
- Czar Alexander II of Russia is killed by a member of the militant socialist Narodniki movement
- Boers and Britain sign peace accord ending the first Boer war
- “Greatest Show On Earth” formed by PT Barnum and James A Bailey
- World’s first electric tram goes into service near Berlin
- February 1869 in Aries
- Colored National Labor Union, first black labor convention, meets in Washington, D.C.
- Elegant California Theater opens in San Francisco
- Tennessee Governor W C Brownlow declares martial law in Ku Klux Klan crisis; Arkansas and North Carolina pass anti-Ku Klux Klan law
- US Postage stamps showing scenes issued for first time
- Dmitri Mendeleev presents the first periodic table of the elements to the Russian Chemical Society
- March 1856 in Pisces
- Russia signs the Treaty of Paris, ending the Crimean War
- 500 Mormons leave Iowa City, Iowa, and head west for Salt Lake City, Utah, carrying all their possessions in two-wheeled handcarts
- Republican Party opens its first national convention in Philadelphia
- The Second Opium War or second Anglo-Chinese War: begins with the Arrow Incident on the Pearl River