In the 19th century a civil war broke out in China. The war started from the Qing dynasty persecuting members of a sect of Christianity.. The rebellion started in the province of Guangxi. The rebels gained significant ground but by 1860 the main Chinese government had contacted Britain for support. Major General Charles Gordon was […]

Sir Edmond Halley was a British astronomer with many great achievements starting early in his career. At only 22 years of age he journeyed to the southern hemisphere and cataloged 341 stars in the sky with great accuracy. This brought him great fame in the sciences and he was elected to the Royal Society, a […]

Often rulers thought solar eclipses were signs of trouble for the kingdom or that their own lives were in danger. One solar eclipse coincidentally fulfilled this prophecy, and shaped the future of modern day Europe. The son of Charlemagne, Emperor Louis the Pious, came to rule most of Europe when his father died. His reign […]

In the 6th century BCE the Medes and Lydians were fighting near the Halys River in modern day Turkey. The Medes were fighting to avenge the murder of their king’s son. Hunters who were insulted by the king of the Medes for not brining back any food, killed his son and tricked the Medes into […]

Mesopotamia which is located in modern day Iraq is seen as one of the birthplaces of civilization. The city of Babylon in this region was a large ancient city and probably the first city in the world to reach a population over 200,000. Due to its size Babylon was a major center for advancements in […]

Other cultures in Asia also had similar myths to China’s regarding solar eclipses. The ancient people of India often mixed religious myth with astronomy. In their explanation of a solar eclipse a serpentine demi-god known as Rahu is caught drinking “the nectar of the gods” and is beheaded by the god Vishnu as punishment. The […]

Eclipses were an important part of other ancient cultures as well. The ancient Chinese used to think that a dragon had come to eat the Sun during a solar eclipse. The word that they used for eclipse was “chih” (食) which also means “to eat”. Witnesses of an eclipse would bang drums and pans and […]

In 2002, Irish archaeoastronomer Paul Griffin announced the confirmation of the world’s oldest known solar eclipse recorded in stone. The carving was discovered at the Loughcrew Cairn in Ireland. The site dates back to 3500-3300 BCE and its layout is based around special positions of the Sun in the sky. One of the Cairns is […]

In a previous blog post we talked about the formation of the Moon and discussed how it was originally 15 times closer and has slowly moved away to its current position. Considering that the Moon is still moving away from us to this day we can surmise that total solar eclipses will not occur on […]