Mars, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn can be spotted without special equipment, with Uranus and Neptune requiring a telescope.

Six planets will be visible together in a rare 'planet parade' starting Jan. 21 The stars and planets are really aligning in January. Skygazers and astronomy enthusiasts can look forward to catching a rare "planet parade" in the night sky through January.

However, while no such events took place on that date, nor on his revised date of Dec. 25, 1919, the seeds of anxiety and fear of planetary alignments were already planted in the collective human psyche, only to sprout again and again in the decades that followed.