The chart of Pearl Harbor, December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m.

This is the map of the heaven above Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 at 7:55 a.m. when the attack on the American navy started the war between Japan and the USA. What you see in the chart is the importance of Mars (symbol of the military and war) and Eris (symbol of discord). Mars is opposition Midheaven (on IC, conjunct Varuna, the god of the waters). Eris is exactly square the Ascendant. And in 1941, no one even had heard of Eris...


Mars and Eris
are prominent in the chart and that is corresponding with the moment:  war and discord. The navy and the sea are mirrored by the position of Varuna and Neptune (elevated). The chart is the astrological picture of a time and place for fire, attacks and war in a navy harbour.

Chart of first attack on Pearl Harbor

PROMINENT MARS
There are fortunate and unfortunate events each day. Mars on the meridian doesn't mean misfortune or getting hurt. It just means that Mars is prominent and that all that is related to Mars will be significant. Like, for example: work, activism, anger, the military, machinery, aggression, men, production, atletics, figting, martial sports and iron, etc. etc., depending on circumstances, genes, gender and situations. 
Unfortunately the situation was: a military place in times of war. That is why the prominent positions of Mars and Eris were extremely dangerous. The most important objects in the chart for that exact moment in time and place were the symbols of discord (Eris) and war (Mars). And it already was a hostile and dangerous era!


CHART AND CONTEXT

On that day there were a lot of places on earth with Mars on the meridian and Eris square Ascendant on a particular moment. But they were not military places. And they were not easy targets. Mars and Eris were in the same place in the chart in the days before and after the day of the attack on Pearl Harbor. On those days the Sun was not exactly trine Mars, however, like the Sun was on December 7. Sun trine Mars and opposition Jupiter shows a chance for successful attacks in a so called grand trine.

SAD ASTROLOGY?

Charts don't show right or wrong. They just show opportunities and chances or difficulties. As this chart is the chart of a first attack, it is the chart of a successful or easy attack. The trine is the symbol of the easy flow between energies, not the symbol of harmony.

The chart of the attack of Pearl Harbor shows - again - that charts should be seen in their context and again: that trines don't mean peace. The good thing about that is that danger can be avoided and precautions can be made. Destruction by humans is not 'desastres'. The chart of the attack of Pearl Harbor shows the correspondence between a vital moment in war and the positions of the astrological symbols of war, but not the 'winner or loser' and not the number of casualties. Sometimes it is like in the poem of Lord Tennyson:

A sad astrology, the boundless plan  That makes you tyrants in your iron skies,  Innumerable, pitiless, passionless eyes,  Cold fires, yet with power to burn and brand  His nothingness into man.

USA CHART AND PEARL HARBOR

One of the charts of the USA in Astrodatabank is the chart of July 4 at 17:10. The  USA chart for July 4, 1776 at 17:08:15 (105 seconds earlier) has progressed Mars conjunct natal Midheaven on December 7, 1941 and transit Eris at 4d13 Aries would be square the progressed Ascendant at 4d25 Cancer. A conjunction means a start. MC (Midheaven) is the symbol of a position/condition/status. And Mars means war (sometimes).

Natal and progressed chart USA 5:08:15 PM

PS Prominent placements are the positions:

- rising before the Sun

- without major aspects within sign or orb 5 degrees

- on an angle

- square the Ascendant

(c) Astropost, written July 4, 2010, published December 8, 2010