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  • 2020-05-01 (xsd:date)
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  • Did the 1981 'Farmer's Almanac' Predict COVID-19? (en)
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  • In April 2020, as the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic spread around the world, Snopes received a number of requests from readers asking us to verify that the 1981 Farmer’s Almanac or Farmers' Almanac predicted the pandemic. Almost all the queries to Snopes shared the following passage: Snopes had encountered this page before, when social media users connected it to numerous sources including American author Dean Koontz and self-described psychic Sylvia Browne. The page actually originates from Sylvia Browne's 2008 book, End of Days. From our previous fact check on this story: We argued that Browne's prediction was more a matter of lucky guessing than predicting. We also wrote: Almanacs, according to the Encyclopaedia Britannica, are books or tables that contain a calendar of the days, weeks, and months of the year. They keep records of astronomical phenomena, with climate information, seasonal suggestions for farmers, and other miscellaneous data. The Farmer's Almanac, also known as Old Farmer's Almanac, has been annually published in the United States since 1792, while another Farmers' Almanac (note the placement of the apostrophe) was developed in 1818. They all usually contain weather predictions, planting schedules, recipes, and more. Their forecasts tend to focus on weather data. From Encyclopaedia Britannica’s page on the Farmer's Almanac: And the Farmer's Almanac has gotten weather predictions wrong. The Grand Forks Herald, which covers daily news from northeast North Dakota and northwest Minnesota, described some incorrect predictions for 2019: Neither was the Farmers' Almanac, a rival to the Old Farmer's Almanac, known for being a scientifically accurate source of weather forecasts. According to a 1981 report from The New York Times, Harry K. Buie, a retired schoolteacher and the man who prepared the 1981 weather data, suffered a fatal heart attack just after compiling the data for 1982. Buie's methods for compiling this data were secretive and sketchy at best: In any case, there is no evidence to support the claim that any 1981 almanac predicted a virus that would spread throughout the globe in 2020. The passage cited in social media posts as originating from the 1981 Farmer's Almanac or Farmers' Almanac was misattributed. (en)
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