My trigger-happy colleagues can have the Promethean look at Uranus in Pisces and start buying water filters; but in true Aquarian style, I prefer the retrograde view. After all, what good is having a past if you don’t revisit it on just such an astrological occasion, and maybe even learn from it?

On the last go-round, Uranus entered Pisces on (get this!) April 1st, 1919, and wove in and out of Aquarius for the second half of that year, until finally He re-entered Pisces on January 22, 1920, just in time for the Roaring Twenties, and stayed there until (get this, again!) April 1st, 1927. Talk about one helluva April Fools’ Day! He returned to the last degree of Pisces for a final station at the end of ’27 and lasting just into early1928, fleeing the coop just in time for the Great Depression. Of course, we’re going to see revolutions of all sorts when examining any historical period, but during this span, it’s the revolutions via the sign of Pisces that should be noteworthy about Uranus’ dynamics. And indeed, astrology works!

Two weeks into this new era and the headlines read, “Stars Form Own Company, United Artists….Four film pioneers have claimed their stake in celluloid. Charlie Chaplin, D.W. Griffith, Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks have founded a film company…which will produce, release and distribute their own new motion pictures.” This was truly the start of independent film-making.

The initial degrees of Uranus in Pisces represented the start of Prohibition, which went into effect on January 16, 1920. (In an ironic reversal, by His final station in 1928 the House Judiciary Committee decided Prohibition was responsible for the increase in crime and insanity in the United States).

Bear in mind Pisces rules more than movies, music and drink. Pisces is the sign of slaves, waifs and nomadic people; and Uranus, as the Great Awakener, symbolizes liberation and contradictions.

These first degrees of Uranus of Pisces also saw such social trends as the rise of Fascism (which was founded by Mussolini on March 23, 1919), the advocating of an anti-Semitic policy by a then little known leader of the German Workers’ Party, Adolph Hitler (February 24, 1920), and the formation of the Communist Party by MaoTse-tung in China in early 1922.

As Uranus proceeded through Pisces, the Ku Klux Klan was also on the rise in the United States as indicated by this headline on August 8, 1925, “40,000 Klansmen March on US Capitol.” Ironically, just as powerful was the up and coming presence of blacks in the music industry with the likes of Louis “Satchmo” Armstrong, Bessie Smith and Josephine Baker. And on that final station of Uranus in Pisces in late 1927, Duke Ellington broke records at the Cotton Club.

With Uranus in full swing in Pisces, the Jazz Age was well underway as seen in the publication of “The Great Gatsby,” Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” and the popularization of Dadaism with the quotation, “Art is dead. This is the new machine art.”

The rise of women and their hemlines also took place during this era. American women won the right to vote on August 26, 1920. Lady Astor was the first woman in Parliament on November 28, 1919. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson became the first woman governor in the US (of Texas, believe it or not!). Joan of Arc was canonized by the Catholic Church on May 30, 1920, just 489 years after she burned at the stake. Aimee Semple McPherson opened her Temple in Los Angeles, proclaiming “Jesus is coming soon – get ready!” Greta Garbo made her film debut with a great sensation. And the St. Louis Court of Domestic Relations attributed the increase in local divorces to the growing economic independence of women.

In science and technology, Uranus made His impact too. Days before His initial entry into Pisces, a professor of physics at Clark University published a monograph, indicating a trip to the moon would someday be possible. In the first weeks of Uranus in Pisces, the headline was, “Hydroplane Crosses Atlantic.” A crude version of television was invented and NBC hooked up all 48 states to a giant radio “studio.” Ironically, the John Scopes was found guilty in the “Monkey Trial” (and at the time of this writing, great controversy is taking place over the cloning of human being).

Astrologers might be interested to know that it was a solar eclipse which facilitated the complete verification of Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity in late 1919 (and that landmark work, by the way, is being questioned in the science community, as reported by the New York Times in January ’03). Finally, while in His last degrees of Pisces, Lindburgh flew the Atlantic alone, and Al Jolson made the first talkie, “The Jazz Singer.”

Film devotees would agree nowhere else was Uranus in Pisces so evident as in the advances of motion pictures. It began with United Artists, ended with the talkies, and in between we saw “Potemkin,” the merger of the Mayer and Goldwyn studios to create MGM, Abel Glance’s “Napoleon,” the phenomenon of Valentino, and in the last year of Uranus in Pisces, Cecil B. DeMille began filming his religious epic, “King of Kings.” Another great film of this era was “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari,” which deals with an insane psychiatrist who uses hypnotism to commit murder, and it is a masterpiece of German Expressionism.

Also in that final year, while Uranus was weaving into Aries, Mae West was found guilty of indecency for her Broadway production of “Sex.” And all our current movie-making and movie-going generation seems to be able to do is invent more computer-generated images and change the date of the Academy Awards so as to give the Golden Globes a run for their money!

Lastly, just as an irresistible bit of sports trivia, on the last day of Uranus in Pisces, Johnny Weissmuller, in his pre-Tarzan days, set three world records in one day and became the holder of every freestyle mark in swimming, a great phenomena of the time.

Another way to look at Uranus’ influence via Pisces is to see who was born during that era and what came about in their lives. Of course, He brought us such legends in the Piscean way as Marlon Brando, Judy Garland, John Glenn and even Henry Kissinger. (Remember Neptune was passing through Leo at the same time too). However, the frontrunners of the Uranus in Pisces “revolution” we see at the very start of the sign. For instance, Ray Bradbury, Montgomery Clift, Margot Fonteyn, Betty Friedan, Timothy Leary, Charlie “Bird” Parker and Pete Seeger were born during Uranus’ ingress to Pisces. So, was Liberace, hardly a musical legend, but a good representative of Uranus in Pisces for other reasons. (By the way, New York State just passed SONDA on the most recent Uranus station in Aquarius).

Interestingly, Frederico Fellini, Isaac Asimov and Jackie Robinson were born in the final days of Uranus in Aquarius, which progressed into Pisces in their young adulthoods. (Ingmar Bergman was born with Uranus in the final degree of Aquarius too, but it never progressed out of the sign, as was the case with southern politician, George Wallace).

In His final degrees of Pisces, almost as a rally, Uranus brought the births of Harry Belafonte, Chuck Berry, Cesar Chavez, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Allen Ginsberg, Marilyn Monroe, Sidney Poitier and Tony Bennett.

As for the mutual reception between Uranus and Neptune, those who thought only our generation could see such an occurrence, might be shocked to see who was born with that combination in the mid-1880’s. Cezanne, Monet, Rodin, Renoir, Winslow Homer, Thomas Hardy, William James, Emile Zola, Tchaikovsky, and the entrepreneurs, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. The list reads like your art history class in college!

Just as noteworthy of the Uranus-in-Pisces births are the deaths during that time, and these names seem like a “passing of the torch” to a new generation of revolutionists in their fields: Modigliani, Eleanora Duse, Robert Peary, Rudolf Steiner, Annie Oakley, and most notably, Claude Monet, perhaps the most well-known of the Impressionists, especially for his water lily paintings, who died on his Uranus return in the sign of the fishes.

Finally, let’s not get so caught up with Uranus in a new sign that we forget His leave-taking of Aquarius is just as significant (and He’s not really leaving for another year). When an outer planet exits a sign (or a house in your personal horoscope), there are reverberations with its entrance from some years ago. This is true on the collective level as well as the personal, so you can put it to your own test. Uranus entered Aquarius on April Fools’ Day of 1995 (third time’s the charm), weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing. He wove back into Capricorn for the second half of that year, and remained in Aquarius since January 12, 1996, when internet use became so jammed that Attorney General Louis Lefkovitz threatened legal action against AOL. Compare that with the recent change of power at this mega-firm. So where were you back then? And how does it compare to today?

In closing, I’d like to share with my mutable-signed friends what I’ve learned from my time spent with a chart full of hard aspects from transiting Uranus: give up caffeine now because you’re not going to get a good night’s sleep for seven years!

Seriously, though, I hope this list of Uranus-in-Pisces names and events helps us to inspire our clients who are artists, caution the ones who are bigoted, and give courage to those who live their lives in fear. On to the next frontier!