10 Times Eclipses Marked History

Telling the time in the ancient world was tricky; trying to describe the past between different cultures was almost impossible. People used different calendars, and attempting to make them work together was tricky. Your year of the Consulship of Cornelius Rufus and Curius Dentatus might be the year of the Archon Charinus to your neighbor. But the heavens keep their own time, and eclipses are useful to historians because they can track them precisely.

Here are ten times that eclipses have left their traces on history—and sometimes changed history.

Related: 10 Bizarre Ways The Moon Affects Life On Earth

10 The First Eclipse?

History before the advent of writing is incredibly hard to date accurately. At Loughcrew in Ireland, there is a cluster of ancient monumental tombs, one of which might contain a piece of art that dates it precisely.

Inside one passage tomb—a large barrow with a stone-lined chamber at its center—is a stone engraved with a series of concentric circles and looping structures. When an archaeoastronomer (someone who studies how people in the past interacted with the sky) saw this feature, he thought that it represented a solar eclipse. Looking at the age of the tomb and when a solar eclipse would have occurred in the area, he decided it must have been made by an artist after November 30, 3340 BC. This would make it the earliest eclipse ever recorded.

Unfortunately, doubt has been cast on this theory. Not every scholar is convinced that the marks represent an eclipse because concentric circles are one of the most common motifs in ancient art in the area. We also cannot be sure that it was cut into the rock near the time of the tomb’s construction. It still remains a tantalizing glimpse into the minds of an enigmatic people.^[1]

9 Eclipse Rock Art

The first image of a solar eclipse might also be found in rock art, this time from New Mexico. In Chaco Canyon, there are the remains of a large complex of buildings built around AD 1000. These ruins are well-preserved and include paintings of the moon and stars—one may even include a supernova that occurred in AD 1054.

On one free-standing stone, a petroglyph is chiseled into the surface, showing a circle with a tangle of strands looping away from it. This looks remarkably like the corona of the Sun, which appears when there is a solar eclipse, especially in times of high solar activity. To study whether any such events took place while the site was occupied, Professor J. McKim Malville worked with colleagues to examine levels of carbon-14, which can be changed by solar activity. When all the evidence was put together, they concluded that the rock art at the site probably represented the solar eclipse of AD 1097.^[2]

8 Hsi and Ho Lose Their Heads

Eclipses were a big deal in most cultures. Many considered the Sun a divine power, so if it ever decided to stop shining, it could only mean the gods were angry. Ancient people had ways of predicting eclipses, which helped to take some of the terror out of these heavenly events—but only if the astronomers did their job.

According to ancient Chinese history, Hsi and Ho were astronomers working in the royal court. They should have known what the sky was going to do, but apparently, they were overly fond of drinking. When an eclipse darkened the sky, the people panicked, and their master sent for them to explain it. He found them drunk, assuming this had caused them to be “the first to allow the regulation of the heavens to get into disorder.”

Hsi and Ho were put to death by beheading “without mercy.”^[3]

7 Dangerous Eclipse

When eclipses strike, they can be very bad for people in power. The empire of Trebizond was one of the successor states to the crumbling Byzantine Empire. In 1332, Basil came to the throne of the empire and proved to be less than popular. His reign was marked by faction fighting and struggles for power. Basil had to rely on mercenaries to support his rule, and these hired soldiers were harsh in their methods, making Basil even more unpopular.

It was during this period of unrest that a solar eclipse happened in 1337, and the people decided that this was a clear sign from God that Basil should be deposed. They pelted the emperor and his family with rocks and chased them all the way to the imperial fortress. Basil survived this apparently bad portent, but not for long. He was poisoned by his wife.

Basil’s son Alexios reigned as emperor and also experienced a solar eclipse in 1361. To stave off the divine wrath that the eclipse seemed to predict, Alexios led his court to a monastery and offered prayers for God to forgive them. They seem to have worked as Alexios’s reign was much more successful than his father’s.^[4]

6 Fall of an Empire

The Byzantine Empire struggled on against the rising strength of the Ottoman Empire until 1453. The Ottomans were besieging Constantinople, and it seemed as if the end of the empire was at hand—but the citizens of the city had hope. It was said that there was a prophecy that said the city would not fall until “the moon rose darkened when it was at the full, that is, lacking the half of it.”

As (bad) luck would have it, just after sunset in May 1453, the full moon rose but appeared as just a white sliver, with the rest dark and red. It was a lunar eclipse. Over the following hours, the darkness over the face of the moon lifted as it shifted out of the shadow of Earth. But the damage was done. The eclipse was seen as a terrible sign. God had abandoned the Byzantines. Morale among the defenders collapsed.

Just seven days after the lunar eclipse, the city walls were breached, and the last remnants of the Roman Empire were conquered.^[5]

5 Battle of the Eclipse

It takes a great deal of astronomical knowledge to be able to accurately predict when and where eclipses will occur. Several cultures developed this ability independently, but among the Greeks, it is said that the philosopher Thales of Miletus was the first to accurately predict a solar eclipse.

According to the historian Herodotus, the timing of the eclipse was a bad one for two rival armies. The Medes and the Lydians were about to go into battle when day turned into night. Finding themselves blundering in the gloom that followed the eclipse, both sides decided that it might be best to try to make peace.

Some think the Battle of the Eclipses, as the abortive fight is known, can be dated to exactly May 28, 585 BC. Others think that the details are not clear enough to allow such a precise dating.^[6]

4 Eclipses and Fake Kings

In ancient Mesopotamia, omens were everywhere. Clay tablets have been found that set out how almost any event could be interpreted as predicting either a good or bad thing. When it came to eclipses, it was almost always bad news—at least for kings. An eclipse invariably meant that a king was doomed to die.

What was a king to do if such an omen of death was received? They would appoint a substitute king. Known as a šar pûhi, this man would be dressed up in all the vestments of kingship, including the crown, and take part in the rituals required of the king—all while the true king slipped away to live quietly for a time. When the priests decided that the true king was safe from the omen, then he would re-emerge. The substitute king was less lucky. He was put to death. It had been predicted that a king would die after all.

There is one fanciful tale where the substitute king got the best of the deal. When an eclipse predicted danger for King Erra-imitti, he was replaced by his gardener Illil-bani. Unfortunately, Erra-imitti died while drinking hot broth, so Illil-bani was allowed to continue as king for the rest of his life.^[7]

3 Chinese Eclipse Oracles

The oldest examples of Chinese writing are found on strange artifacts known as oracle bones. To determine what they should do, the ancient Chinese would have questions carved onto animal bones or turtle shells. A red-hot poker would then be pressed into the bone, and how the bone cracked revealed the will of heaven.

When an eclipse occurred, it left people with a great many doubts about what the future might hold, so it is no surprise that a number of oracle bones have been discovered that mention either solar or lunar eclipses. The eclipses that are mentioned have helped scholars to date the precise time when the bone artifacts were made, around 1200 BC.

The timing of the eclipses has also been used to study Earth in the distant past. When an eclipse occurs in a certain place, it is determined by the rotation of the Earth. You can learn about everything from the rotation speed of the planet to the viscosity of the core from timing eclipses.^[8]

2 Athenian Army Doomed

In the 5th century BC, the Athenians were at the height of their power and fighting a drawn-out war with the Spartans. In 415 BC, the Athenians voted to send a fleet of ships and an army to attack Syracuse on Sicily. One of the leading politicians of the day, Nicias, was against this mission and tried to stop it by declaring that for it to succeed, it would need even more ships and men. However, the Athenians granted his request and put Nicias in charge of the attack.

The unwilling Nicias was a cautious general, and when the expedition landed, progress was slow. This gave the Syracusans time to receive help from the Spartans. Things dragged on and went ever more badly for the Athenians. Eventually, it was decided that the expedition had been a failure and that the Athenian force should retreat from Sicily. Then, a lunar eclipse struck, and Nicias, fearing it was a bad omen, insisted that the Athenians stay for another month. This proved fatal.

Nicias was captured and killed. Almost all of the Athenian survivors were forced into a quarry, where they died of hunger and thirst.^[9]

1 Columbus Saved by a Lunar Eclipse

Christopher Columbus was a ruthless exploiter of the people he discovered in the Americas. He was even willing to exploit the heavens to get what he wanted from them.

During his fourth voyage to the New World, Columbus brought his ships to Jamaica and relied on the native people to feed and supply his men. At first, it seems that the people were happy to trade with Columbus, but after six months, they apparently wearied of their guests and stopped giving the Spaniards food. That was when Columbus spotted an interesting date in his calendar—on February 29, 1504, there would be a lunar eclipse.

Columbus met with the local chief and told him that because his people had stopped giving Columbus food, God would show his wrath by darkening the moon. When this came to pass, the people panicked and begged forgiveness. Columbus said God would forgive them if they provided food, and the people agreed. Columbus duly prayed for as long as he knew the eclipse would last and then reappeared to say all was fine just as the moon began to brighten. At least, that is the story that has come down to us.^[10]