This decade opened with a conjunction of Saturn and Pluto and will close with a square of Saturn and Pluto so let us look at other examples. Hard aspects between Saturn and Pluto are notorious for the misfortunes that befall under such a combination. Here are a few examples of various hard Saturn-Pluto aspects — conjunctions, opposition, and square — and the way the results played out in the real world.

Maine Sunk

The first example is the Spanish-American War. America went into Cuba to fight the Spanish for whom Cuba was a colony. The casus belli in this case was the explosion on board the USS Maine in Havana Harbor on February 15, 1898. As a result of the war the United States, after defeating Spain, got several colonies that had belonged to Spain, such as Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. In addition the United States had a strong interest in Cuba until 1959 and the Cuban Revolution. The United states “acquired” Guantanamo Bay from Cuba in 1903 which the U.S. is still using. In this case the United States chart was strongly impacted by the Saturn Pluto opposition with Saturn on the Ascendant of the US and Pluto on the Descendant of the US. With this lineup the important action took place away from the country — the Descendant represents the other — while the home (Ascendant) was relatively calm. Most observers use the Spanish-America War as the start of the American Empire since this war allowed the US to acquire several oversea colonies. Many Americans, such as the psychologist William James (brother of novelist Henry), steel baron Andrew Carnegie, reformer Jane Addams, and author Mark Twain were strongly opposed to this imperialist action of the United States and formed the American Anti-Imperialist League.

First Tower Struck

Compare this to the chart of 9/11. This was a perilous time for the United States. The presidential election the previous year was stolen from the Democrats by a ruling of the Supreme Court, and no one seemed too upset. There were no charge of the Democrats by the Republicans that they were “election deniers”. Then in September of 2001 two planes crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, and that event allowed the United States to invade Afghanistan and Iraq. Notice in this case that Pluto is on the Ascendant of the United States, and that is indeed where the action took place, and Saturn is on the Descendant, where the action came from. This is the reverse of the chart for the Spanish American War. I refer to these two events as the Bookends of the American Empire — that started with the Spanish American War and the events of 9/11 were the beginning of the end of that empire.

If one were to invent an astrological chart for the 9/11 event one would be hard pressed to come up with something more appropriate than the actual transits to the Sibly natal chart of the United States.

Afghanistan Invaded

Note that Afghanistan and Iraq were invaded by the United States under the Saturn Pluto opposition: the Iraq invasion, which happened a year and a half after the invasion of Afghanistan, still had Saturn opposite Pluto with an orb of less than three degrees. Note that for Iraq Pluto was right on the MC at the time of the invasion, certainly an apt symbol for what happened to that country.

Iraq Invaded

Franz Ferdinand Assassination

Here is an example of what happens when the Saturn-Pluto conjunction occurs near the Cardinal Axis. In astrology the Cardinal Axis — 0 Aries, 0 Cancer, 0 Libra, and 0 Capricorn — represents a point in common to everyone in the world, and so that Cardinal Axis represents the World. In this chart for the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which is the event that putatively started the First World War, we see that Pluto is at 0 Cancer and Saturn is closing on a conjunction with it at 23 Gemini. When the war was declared one month later Saturn had moved to 27 Gemini and the conjunction was much closer.

World War One Declared

Graphical Ephemeris for World War One

From the Graphical ephemeris that covers the whole period of World War 1 we see that the exact Saturn Pluto conjunction occurs in early October 1914, after which both planets go retrograde at the same time, and the final conjunction is in May of 1915. Pluto is close to the cardinal axis for most of the war. Pluto crosses the Cardinal Axis at 0 Caner at 1.

2019-2020 Graphical Ephemeris

For an example closer to the present, let us look at the most recent Saturn Pluto conjunction of January 2020. At the time I though there would be a war with Iran since the United States had just assassinated Qasen Solemani, an Iranian Major General who was in Iraq for talks on battling the terrorist association which was blamed for the 9/11 attacks. This event happened on January 3, 2020 when Saturn and Pluto were less than one degree apart. But that war didn’t happen. Rather, two months later the World Health Organization declared a pandemic and we all know how that turned out.

Pandemic Declared

In the graphical Ephemeris above we can see that the Saturn Pluto conjunction happened in early 2020 and they remained close for most of the year. In addition, Jupiter and Saturn conjoined at the end of the year, marking the beginning of the two decade Jupiter Saturn cycle, the equivalent of a New Moon in planetary cycle terminology.

The Other 9/11

Another example of a Saturn-Pluto hard aspect also occurred on September 11 and in fact the event is often called “the other 9/11”. In 1970 a socialist — Salvador Allende — was elected President of the South American country of Chile. This infuriated US President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger. The US/CIA attempted a coup of the government of Chile which was unsuccessful. But the military in Chile overthrew the government in a bloody coup on September 11, 1973, creating a dictatorship in Chile that lasted decades. Notice in the chart within the US chart that Pluto was near the MC of the US. Several massive changes happened to the government of the US during this period, such as the Watergate crisis (named for the Washington, DC hotel where it took place and adding the suffix “-gate” to many other crises since) and President Nixon took the US off of the gold standard, an act which still has repercussions for the US and the world more than fifty years later. This episode of Chilean history is covered in the film Missing directed Costa-Gavras which came out in 1982 and book Chile In Their Hearts by John Dinges which was recently published.

National Security Act

The start of the (First?) Cold War is hard to date exactly. Perhaps it was when the atom bombing of Japan happened, which was not necessary to defeat Japan but served as a clear message to the Soviet Union — our partner in fighting World War II — that the United States had the super weapon that it was not afraid to use. Or it could be the “Long Telegram” from George Kennan — a US diplomat in the Soviet Union — recommending isolation of the Soviet Union, or it could be when a US President expounded the “Truman Doctrine”, but I think the best choice — right in the middle of it all — was the passing of National Security Act of 1947 which created the CIA and changed the name of the Department of War to the Department of Defense. Just once Uranus cycle after that the Department of Defense name was changed back to the Department of War. For the start of the Cold War, and especially the Nation Security Act on July 26, 1947 we see that Saturn and Pluto are conjunct.

New Cold War

There was also a Saturn-Pluto conjunction in 1982; this saw the start of Regan’s war in Central America: the US supported a rogue army called the Contras in an attempt to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. There was a book by Noam Chomsky called Toward a New Cold War published in 1982 whose title highlights what was happening. There was also a war between Iraq and Iran with the United States supporting Saddam Hussein who was the leader of Iraq. The United States was selling weapons to Iran (which was under an embargo because of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 which deposed the Shah of Iran who had been inserted into Iran in 1953 when the British and the US deposed the elected leader of Iran) and using the money thus gained to supply weapons for the Contras; supplying weapons directly to the Contras was prohibited by a U.S law.

Japan Invades Manchuria

When Japan invaded Manchuria in 9-18-1931, well before World War Two officially started, there was a Saturn opposite Pluto. This is not terribly obvious from the chart above, but when we look at a graphical ephemeris (below) for the surrounding period it is obvious. The exact oppositions happened in February, July, and December 1931. This invasion resulted in such things as the “Rape of Nanjing” in which case the Nazis were the good guys. Horrible things were done to the Chinese people by the Japanese. One book that covers this is The Rape of Nanking by Iris Chang which discusses this incident which took place several years after the invasion.

Graphical Ephemeris for 1931

But hard aspects don’t just include the conjunction, square, and opposition. Here is a chart (below) for when Italy invaded Ethiopia, one of the many event that heralded the start of World War Two, even thought it was several years before the official start. If we look at the chart we don’t see a hard aspect between Saturn and Pluto; here is where looking at the graphical ephemeris comes in handy. This is in the eighth harmonic graphical ephemeris, which means the when lines cross it indicate a conjunction, opposition, square, semisquare or sesquiquadrate. Here we can see a sesquiquadrate occurred twice before — in May and June of 1935 — the actual invasion and once after — in February of 1936 — so the date of the invasion was sandwiched in between.

Italy Invades Ethiopia

Harmonic Eight Graphical Ephemeris for 1935

In a decade that began with a hard Saturn Pluto aspect and ended with a hard Saturn Pluto aspect, there was also one in the middle of the decade. There was a semisquare of these two planets in May of 2024, September of 2024, and finally on January 26, 2025. Less than a week before that last semmisquare occurred the second inauguration of Donald Trump, whose first year of his second term has been filled with disruption and chaos.

Saturn Semisquare Pluto January 2025

The next hard aspect of Saturn and Pluto will be coming up in 2028 and 2029; it happens three times and the third occurrence is just hours before the Full Moon. As you can see from the chart for this third Saturn-Pluto square many planets line up. One wonders what notable event will happen under this square. Stay tuned….

Third Saturn-Pluto Square in 2029

Saturn Pluto Square Within US Chart