"If I had wished to attach to each quatrain a listing of its period, that would have been possible to do." With these words to his King, Nostradamus, the 16th-century French seer, left behind hundreds of controversial prophecies. Author Kay Wells asks: what if he did do just that? Attach a list? For the explosive answer, she selects Quatrain X.72, which predicts apocalyptic events for 1999. Using the prophet's words as her guide, she solves the quatrain's many puzzles and uncovers the sensational secret they hide - a network of dates for 1900-2010 that traces the history of Britain, a fading power, and the United States, supreme at the end of the 20th century. Regions, personalities and events are highlighted, from Iraq in 1917 to Afghanistan in 2010, from Elizabeth II to Barack Obama, from space technology to quantum theory. It's all there, our world, our age, marked out for us by the man whose brilliant vision has always been concealed. Until now.