(Also, I’m really hoping it’s false so I can use it as an example of a questionable factoid when I teach freshman comp in the fall.) Does anybody know for sure? Nearly completely ignoring your original question and focusing on your next to last statement: I traveled to Canada in '72 to see that total solar eclipse, but it became cloudy that day. I’ve also seen about four partial solar eclipses, but I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse. I’m 48 and I’ve seen six or more lunar eclipses. This is why most people have seen multiple lunar eclipses, but very few have seen a total solar eclipse. Partial ones are seen over smaller areas, and of course total solar eclipses are visible only in the path of totality which is 60 or so miles wide max. If he knew there was going to be a lunar eclipse on that night, it was worth a shot to try to use it to control the natives because these are seen over very wide areas. If it really happened, maybe he just got lucky.** Or even if other scientists in Europe had predicted an eclipse in Europe, and he knew that date, I don’t think an eclipse in Europe is always visible in Jamaica, too. Then again, I don’t know enough about the math involved - maybe one’s location is unnecessary, but at least that’s my theory. **I don’t know how Columbus could have predicted one so quickly when he really didn’t know where he was, exactly, in relation to Europe where any earlier equations (however rough) might have been derived. This would allow CC to take the credit for it, being influential with the gods or even one of them. They could still attribute it to the gods being angry. However, that doesn’t mean they thought of it as a purely natural event as we do today. ![]() The reason is that these are seen by anyone who can see the moon at the right time, up to half of the earth. ![]() If it is, you are almost certainly correct that they had seen lunar eclipses before. My knee-jerk reaction: It seems unlikely, to say the least, that the Jamaicans had never seen an eclipse before … and the whole story sounds a lot like the sort of tall tale an explorer would tell about the ignorant natives, immediately prior to enslaving them.
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