Almanacs were the most popular form of literature at that time, and they usually contained astrological predictions about the coming year. One of the events predicted by Mr. Bickerstaff was the death "by a raging fever" of the famous astrologer John Partridge. Bickerstaff predicted that Partridge would die at exactly 11 p.m. on March 29 of that year...

...Enraged, Partridge published a pamphlet in which he insisted that he was still alive and that Bickerstaff was a fraud. Bickerstaff coolly responded by arguing that Partridge was obviously dead, since no living man could have written the rubbish that had appeared in his last almanac. Bickerstaff also noted that Partridge's own wife had admitted that her husband had "neither life nor soul."
1708.