The first thing many people read in a newspaper is their horoscope. Seventy million people in the US read it every day, and “What’s your sign?” has become a common question when getting to know a person. There is no denying the popularity of horoscopes.

Before you check out your daily horoscope, you need to know your sun sign, which is determined by your date of birth. This system originated thousands of years ago. The signs were named after the constellation that the Sun lined up with on a particular day of the year. While the naming system is old, the link between sun signs and personality was invented by Alan Leo in the early 1900s. With the help of mass media, this concept spread across the world like wildfire.

很多人每天看報紙最先看的就是他們的星座運勢。美國有七千萬人每天都會查閱星座運勢，而要認識一個人時，「你是什麼星座的？」已變成很普遍的問題。不可否認地，星座運勢是熱門話題。

在你檢視你的每日星座運勢前，你需要知道你的太陽星座，這是由你的出生日期來決定的。這套系統發源自數千年前。各個星座是以太陽在一年中的特定一天連線到的星座區域來命名。雖然這套命名系統很古老，但太陽星座與性格之間的關聯是艾倫．李奧在二十世紀初才創造的。在大眾傳播媒體的推波助瀾之下，這個概念像野火般迅速傳遍全世界。