Today is the 109th anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun...

On May 13, 1917, three young shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal - Lucia dos Santos (10), Francisco Marto (8), and Jacinta Marto (7) - reported seeing an apparition of a beautiful woman who identified herself as coming from Heaven. The children believed her to be the Blessed Virgin Mary. She instructed them to return to the same location on the 13th of each month for six consecutive months, promising to reveal her identity and deliver a message to the world.

Over the following months, the children reported additional apparitions, during which the Virgin Mary reportedly urged humanity to repent, pray the Rosary, and make sacrifices for the conversion of sinners. She also entrusted the children with what became known as the Three Secrets of Fatima, including a terrifying vision of Hell. The growing publicity attracted thousands of pilgrims, but also considerable skepticism and hostility from Portugal's fiercely anticlerical republican government. In August, local authorities detained and interrogated the children, allegedly threatening them if they refused to recant their stories. Nevertheless, the children maintained their accounts.

Most importantly, the children announced in advance that a great miracle would occur on October 13, 1917, so that people might believe.

On October 13, an estimated 70,000 people gathered at the Cova da Iria, including believers, skeptics, journalists, and government officials. Heavy rain had transformed the surrounding fields into a muddy swamp, leaving the enormous crowd thoroughly soaked.

Shortly after noon, according to numerous eyewitness accounts, the rain stopped and the clouds parted, revealing the sun. Witnesses described seeing it spin like a gigantic wheel, radiating brilliant colors across the sky. Some reported that it zigzagged wildly before appearing to plunge toward the Earth, causing terrified spectators to scream, pray, and fall to their knees. The phenomenon reportedly lasted approximately ten minutes before the sun returned to its normal appearance. Numerous witnesses also claimed that their previously soaked clothing and the surrounding ground had inexplicably dried.

The extraordinary event was reported in contemporary Portuguese newspapers, including O Século, whose journalist Avelino de Almeida described the sun apparently dancing in the sky. Although accounts varied and not everyone reported seeing the same phenomena, the incident became one of the most famous alleged miracles of the twentieth century.

Francisco and Jacinta both contracted influenza during the devastating pandemic that swept across Europe. Francisco died on April 4, 1919, at the age of 10, while Jacinta died on February 20, 1920, at the age of 9.

Lucia survived and eventually entered religious life, becoming a Carmelite nun. She spent much of her life documenting the apparitions and their messages, including the famous Three Secrets of Fatima. She died on February 13, 2005, at the age of 97.

In 1930, following a lengthy investigation, the Catholic Church officially declared the Fatima apparitions worthy of belief. Francisco and Jacinta were canonized as saints by Pope Francis in 2017, on the centenary of the first apparition.

To this day, the Miracle of the Sun remains an extraordinary and debated historical event. Skeptics have proposed natural and psychological explanations for the reported phenomena, while believers regard it as a supernatural manifestation of the Virgin Mary. Whatever one's interpretation, the fact that three impoverished Portuguese children announced a public miracle months in advance, and that tens of thousands subsequently gathered to witness an extraordinary reported event, makes Fatima one of the most remarkable religious episodes in modern history.