As in, I think, the first ever.
But we just ran this on its anniversary a couple of days ago, and therefore its appropriate.
Lex Anteinternet: The Miracle of the Sun, October 13, 1917.:
Yesterday we reported on the soggy First Battle of Passchendael, an event so wet that artillery fire proved ineffective and the New Zealand army accordingly had the worst day in its history.
I don't know how widespread the October rains were in 1917, but I do know that it had been wet in Portugal as well, as that's well recorded in regards to the Miracle of the Sun, the final 1917 event associated with the Marian apparitions at Fatima, Portugal, that year.
As noted here earlier, there had been an entire series of reports of Marian Apparitions in 1917, most of which occurred at Fatima but one report of which occurred in Russia. This event is distinctly different from the earlier events as it was widely viewed by numerous people and came on the date that had been predicted by the three peasant children who had been reporting the Portuguese apparitions.
By this point, the Fatima apparitions had been receiving press reports and accordingly it had been reported that the peasant children had related that the vision of the Lady they had been seeing had promised a miracle so that "all may believe". Large crowed accordingly gathered on the day of the predicted miracle. The day was rainy but the clouds broke and the sun appeared to dance in the sky, an event reported by thousands of people. People whose clothes had been sodden found their clothes dry, and clean, immediately after the event, a phenomenon even experienced by residents of a nearby village who had not attended the gathering. A pile of rosaries that had become entangled on the ground near where the children reported the Marian apparition had appeared earlier were picked up immediately after and were untangled.
There are of course skeptics concerning the event and while even Catholics are not obligated to believe that it occurred, it is unique due to being experienced on a very widespread basis and, further, to have included more than a visual apprehension that something was occurring and to be experienced by people nearby who were not part of the gathering and who had even been inattentive to it. Portuguese poet Afonso Lopes Vieira reported, for example, "On that day of October 13, 1917, without remembering the predictions of the children, I was enchanted by a remarkable spectacle in the sky of a kind I had never seen before. I saw it from this veranda". It was also unique in not being limited to merely a visual experience, but to also feature numerous and distinct physical expressions. If it was a mass hallucination, as some have claimed, it was an odd one indeed being experienced by over 10,000 people and to include their sight, smell and their clothing.
As an aside, the location of this event, Fatima, is a town named for Fatimah bint Muhammad, the youngest daughter of Muhammad, according to Shia Muslims. She was the only daughter of Muhammad and Khadijah. She was, in her adult years, the oldest of Muhammed's children.
Khadijah was the only one of Muhammad's wives to which he was married monogamously. He only took up polygamy after her death. She was married three times and Muhammad was her last husband. She is known to have been a Catholic, and its known that her uncle was a Gnostic Priest. Based upon what little is known of her, her Catholic nature seems to have held sway in significant ways in the household. It's claimed by Muslims that she was the first convert to Islam, but given what little is known about Muhammad (to include even his name), this is quite questionable and indeed the contemporary nature of Muhammad's religious mission is open to question as well. It may in fact be the case, and indeed likely was, that their marriage was Catholic in form (which would not have required a Priest at the time) and she maintained her Faith throughout their marriage. Indeed, there is not insignificant evidence that Muhammad picked up elements of it and Gnosticism through his marriage to her and he may in fact have really been a type of Gnostic at one time, and perhaps for the rest of his life.
Assuming, anyhow, that what we know if his family life is correct (which is open to some question) Fatima was his oldest child to survive childhood and the only child of that marriage to make it to adulthood. Of interest, she married Ali, Muhammad's cousin, but that marriage, like that of her mother's, was monogamous during her lifetime. She would be one of seven of Ali's wives, but all the others followed her death. This again raises strong questions on what her beliefs were, and its known that she had rejected many suitors prior to Ali. Anyhow, there's reason to believe that she had either absorbed much of her mother's Catholic faith or that she may also have actually been Catholic, a statement which would horrify most Muslims but which explains much of what is actually known about her.
This region of Portugal was conquered by the Muslims, quite obviously, who named the town after the person. It was in turn taken back during the Reconquista. More than one believer who has studied the Marian Apparitions at Fatima have pondered the choice of location and wondered about it. Muslims have a fairly strong appreciate of Mary and there's been those who wondered if the Apparitions occurrence in some ways relates to a different type of Reconquista
