Napoleon's comet. War and Peace.
At the midpoint of War and Peace, Tolstoy describes the character of Pierre observing this “enormous and brilliant comet [...] which was said to portend all kinds of woes and the end of the world”. The comet was popularly thought to have portended Napoleon’s invasion of Russia (even being referred to as “Napoleon’s Comet”) and the War of 1812, among other events.
The year 1811 turned out to be particularly fine for wine production, and merchants marketed “Comet Wine” at high prices for many years afterwards. The film Year of the Comet, a 1992 romantic comedy adventure film, is based on this premise and tells the story of the pursuit of a contemporarily discovered bottle of wine from the year of the Great Comet, bottled for Napoleon. The film stars Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Daly and French film actor Louis Jourdan (his last film before retiring).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Comet_of_1811
https://darkmattersalot.com/2012/10/05/1811-1816-when-the-earth-had-a-brush-with-the-devil/
https://history.hanover.edu/texts/1811/Web/Topic-Comet.html
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