With his first calendar, Kepler was decidedly lucky. He had prophesied, among other things, a cold spell and an invasion by the Turks. Six months later he reported smugly to Michael Maestlin: By the way, so far the calendar’s predictions are proving correct. There is an unheard-of cold in our land. In the Alpine farms people die of the cold. It is reliably reported that when they arrive home and blow their noses, the noses fall off … As for the Turks, on 1 January they devastated the whole country from Vienna to Neustadt, setting everything on fire and carrying off men and plunder.13
