A small village in central Portugal where there was a supposed apparition of the Virgin Mary, the first occurrence happening in 1917 making the small village one of the most famous Marian shrines in Europe. The event was so special that it became the only one of its kind that has been authenticated by the Roman Catholic Church. The story runs like this: On May 13, 1917, three young peasant school children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marto, were tending their parents’ flock when a flash of lightning lit up the sky and was followed by a vision of “a lady brighter than the sun” sitting in the branches of a tree. According to Lucia the only one who could hear what she was saying the lady announced, “I am from Heaven. I have come to ask you to return here six times, at this same hour, on the thirteenth of every month. Then, in October, I will tell you who I am and what I want.”
Only a few people came with the children in June but thousands attended in July. On neither occasion did anyone but the three children see anything, and consequently the authorities accused the Church of fabricating a miracle. The Church, fearing it was a hoax, was noncommittal. Lucias mother admitted that her daughter had, from an early age, been prone to fantasizing and making up stories to draw attention to herself, and now feared that she was leading people astray. Nevertheless, the children, led by Lucia, refused to alter their story and, at the final appearance, on October 13, 70,000 people converged on Fatima where they witnessed the so-called “Miracle of the Sun.”