A history of solar eclipses and the strange response to them

As one of the final big events of 2020, the sun will go dark. Fortunately, this is only temporary and expected to happen due to loneliness Total solar eclipse Of the year.

Unlike the main eclipse which was at least partial Visible to many Americans in 2017The 2020 eclipse on December 14 will be seen in full from the southern tip of South America and parts of the Atlantic and Pacific. It will still be possible to see from anywhere through the live stream.

although Total solar eclipse With only a few minutes to go, there is a long history of all sorts of weird reactions from men who have a brief blanket with the darkness of day in a rare event.

The Vikings raised their voices to scare Schol and Hati, the two wolves of the Norse mythology who chased the sun and moon and occasionally caught them, causing an eclipse. Centuries later, a woman worried about the fate associated with the 1748 eclipse “locked herself in a room and cut off her hand in such a way that she died,” according to the London Evening Post at the time.

Some bizarre responses in past centuries have come at a time when the understanding of what causes these stars to be abducted was less widespread. But we are not ignorant, modern folk immunity.

In her 1982 essay Total Eclipse, D’Dillard heard screams of terror and / or excitement at the sight of a solar eclipse in Washington state in 1979.

The historian of astronomy and author of America’s first great eclipse, Steve Ruskin, also found a similarity.

“What strikes me most astonishingly as anyone who has studied eclipses throughout history is that despite any time or scientific knowledge (or lack thereof), human reactions to eclipses have continued, on a global scale, manifestations of wonder and amazement. Is, and that is also fear and terror, ”Ruskin told me.

They say that according to ancient legend and legend, the Norse wolves were not the only animals, eating the sun and causing eclipses. Maya, who had learned to predict eclipses, sometimes portrayed them as a giant snake. The Inca believed that the Jaguar had swallowed the moon in order to cause a lunar eclipse.

“A unique and largely unknown response to the eclipse can be found in the account of the Australian Australian Tribal People of 1866,” says Ruskin. They “allegedly believed that the eclipse was taken on the moon by another race, people who were sick and angry, and were taking a ‘bad mentality’ on the lower Australian Australian tribes.”

Royal concerns

The ancient Babylonians had enough mathematical understanding to predict eclipses, but they nevertheless saw them as bad omens for their royalty. They always put a common on the throne during the eclipse so that if any real dark actions fall on the king they fall on the fake king instead. After the eclipse, the Regal stand-in was rewarded for his service by killing him, just to make sure no bad eclipse coty died with him.

When court astronomers in ancient China failed to predict an eclipse, they met the same fate as being intoxicated. The 1,000,000-year-old legend later inspired a poem that spanned centuries:

“Here lie the corpses of Ho and Hai, whose fate appeared to be sad but executed because they could not spy on Thalips who was invisible.”

Of course, the most famous eclipse was the one that occurred in 1133 with the death of King Henry I of England. After the chaos and civil war.

A Eclipse in Turkey in 585 BC Had the opposite effect. The fighting army took it as a sign of the gods that maybe they should try to go along. In the same way, as the story progresses, the 15-year struggle suddenly ends.

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Mind blowing

Is. After the eclipse of 6477, the Greek poet Archieloche thought to himself, considering what other tricks the gods could possess for the following men:

“After this, men can believe anything, expect anything. If any of you wonder in the future if the land animals move from dolphins to their salty pastures, and the sound waves of the sea like the waves more. Land, when dolphins prefer mountains Is. ”

According to Ruskin, the eclipse also had a darker effect on the original Jamaicans when beach superhero Christopher Columbus used the occasion to reassure locals that they had fed their crew the best way or risked angering their god. The arrival of the eclipse helped Columbus conquer the natives.

The strangest response to total solar eclipses in history was the least hysterical. In the year 1230, when the sun disappeared immediately after the early morning sun over Europe, the local workers gave it a little thought. According to historian Roger W. Wandover, they just went back to bed, only to be surprised when the sun regained its normal brightness within an hour.

I was shocked to see the sun still setting

“Not often, (the eclipse) was a cause of fear and discomfort,” says Ruskin. “Unless scientific explanations of the Earth’s motion are made until the so-called 16th and 17th century European scientific revolutions, the sun and moon allay such concerns, at least among Europeans.”

This scientific enlightenment allowed us to take a deep breath and look around. The event also has a strange effect on animals.

“A crow was the only animal near me; it seemed strange, howling, and inexplicably flying closer and closer to the ground,” John Couch Adams wrote of the 19th century eclipse.

The scientific curiosity surrounding the eclipse also encouraged some potential anxiety-inspiring efforts, such as the use of a balloon by Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev to observe the 1887 eclipse from a height of more than 2 miles in the air.

So, now let’s take a look at some irrational, irrational and frustrating weird reactions to this trick of trigonometry, so try not to judge. Even today, the myth that eclipse is somehow a risk to pregnant women continues. When the thing that sustains a whole life suddenly disappears from the sky, who is to say that it will probably not stimulate a deep primitive instinct that pushes forward the more rational answers of the conscious mind?

If you can get somewhere on the road to perfection on December 14th you will have the opportunity to find first hand.

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