Eclipse

Chinese royal astronomers Hsi and Ho were beheaded in 2134 BC as punishment for failing to predict an eclipse.

A Syrian clay tablet, in the Ugaritic language, recorded a solar eclipse which occurred on March 5, 1223 B.C.

The Eclipse of Bur-Sagale occurred on June 15, 763 BC, in Assyria (present-day Iraq) and is recognized as the earliest solar eclipse mentioned in historical sources that has been successfully identified.

The Eclipse of Bur-Sagale was recorded in the Assyrian eponym canon, which listed the years based on the officials (eponyms) who held power during the reign of the Assyrian king Ashur-dan III. The detailed astronomical observations made by the ancient Assyrians allowed modern scholars to accurately identify this specific eclipse.

The Eclipse of Bur-Sagale holds historical significance because it serves as a fixed reference point for dating and correlating other events in Mesopotamian history. By using the eclipse as a chronological marker, historians and archaeologists have been able to establish a more accurate timeline for the ancient civilizations of Mesopotamia.

The Battle of Halys between the Medes and the Lydians was being fought on May 28, 585 BC near the Halys River in what is now central Turkey when an eclipse of the sun was seen by both sides. Stunned, both armies laid down their weapons, and they agreed to a truce.

The 585 BC eclipse had been predicted by the Greek philosopher and scientist Thales of Miletus , who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place.

By Eclipse Predictions by Fred Espenak and Jean Meeus (NASA's GSFC) - NASA, Wikipedia Commons

Because astronomers can calculate the dates of historical eclipses, some describe the Battle of Halys as the earliest historical event whose date is known with precision to the day

The Greek philosopher, Pappus of Alexandria, observed an eclipse of the Sun on October 18, 320 AD and wrote a commentary on The Great Astronomer.

By I, Luc Viatour, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikipedia Commons

Charlemagne's third son Louis the Pious (778 – 840) died when an eclipse quite literally frightened him to death.

During his fourth voyage westwards Christopher Columbus was anchored off Jamaica and rations were low (the natives wouldn't trade him any.)  The explorer learned from his Zacuto almanac that on February 29, 1504 there was to be an eclipse of the moon. Columbus summoned the Jamaican chiefs and told them if they don’t give him food he had the power to blot out the moon. They laughed but then the eclipse begun. The terrified natives begged him to bring the moon back and they would give him what he wanted.

English astronomer Francis Baily first observed "Baily's beads" on May 15, 1836. They are a phenomenon during a solar eclipse in which the rugged lunar limb topography allows beads of sunlight to shine through.

French astronomer Pierre Jules César Janssen discovers helium in 1868, while analyzing the chromosphere of the sun during a total solar eclipse in Guntur, India.

On August. 21, 2017, a total solar eclipse was visible across the United States. The path of totality stretched from Oregon to South Carolina, covering 14 states across the US. The previous total solar eclipse visible from the U.S. mainland happened on February 26, 1979, but this one was different. The eclipse’s ‘path of totality’ was completely within U.S. soil for the first time since 1776.

The solar eclipse of April 8, 2024 was a memorable event for North America as the eclipse path stretched across parts of Mexico, the United States (from Texas to Maine), and Canada, crossing the entire contiguous United States. the 2024 eclipse offered a wider path, a potentially more dramatic view of the corona due to the sun's activity, and the chance for a larger audience to witness totality compared to the 2017 eclipse. The next total solar eclipse crossing the US won't occur until 2045.

Jupiter can have a triple eclipse, in which three moons cast shadows on the planet simultaneously.

Using tiny microphones suspended among flowers, researchers recorded the buzzing of bees during the August 21, 2017 North American eclipse. The bees were active and noisy right up to the last moments before totality. As totality hit, the bees all went silent in unison.