Four of the most incredible Eclipse that forever entered the history of

Very soon, August 21, in the United States will be a total solar Eclipse — the first thing which will be seen from coast to coast, for almost a century. The event will last 2 minutes and 40 seconds. That's great, but pales in comparison to solar eclipses of the past. In 2009, for example, a solar Eclipse in South-East Asia has become the longest in a century — it lasted 6 minutes and 40 seconds.

How many celestial events in the history of eclipses are often mistaken for signs of the Apocalypse. Fortunately, these pessimistic predictions never come true. Sometimes after the Eclipse, people began to create tools to better understand Eclipse. Four solar eclipses that have influenced the course of history, in the compilation from Gizmodo.

May 28, 585 BC — "Battle of the Eclipse".

In ancient times eclipses were seen as an opportunity to communicate with the dead and was considered a terrible event. But, at least, once the Eclipse ended the war. According to the Greek historian Herodotus, two camps — the Lydians in ancient Turkey, and the Medes of ancient Iran — struggled to land on the Peninsula of Anatolia, modern Turkey.

"The Eclipse happened right in the middle of a battle between the two warring Nations, the Lydians and the Medes," says the scientist Brian brewer.

Although they fought for more than a decade, the Eclipse quickly stopped the battle. The event became known as the "battle of the Eclipse". Both sides thought it was for the sign, laid down their arms and made peace right on the spot.

August 21, 1560, "Error" Eclipse.

The coming solar Eclipse — not the first, which will happen on August 21. At the same date in 1560, a partial solar Eclipse inspired the then 13-year-old Tycho Brahe to become interested in stars. The fact that the phenomenon had been predicted, but the prediction was inaccurate: the astronomers made a mistake one day! Error so much impressed with Braga, that he decided to create tools for more precise study of space phenomena. Using the resources that he had as a Danish nobleman, Brahe built the largest datascopes devices of his time and performed a thorough observation.

8 APR 1652 — "Gloomy Monday".

Total Eclipse of the sun terrified the whole of Western Europe. It was followed by a sad description, was found by historians in large numbers, as, for example, the text entitled "Discourse of the terrible Eclipse of the Sun". It was one of many occasions when the Eclipse is considered a harbinger of the Apocalypse. But not everyone was scared. One witness, Wiberg from the town of Carrickfergus in Scotland, was hit in the lyrics: "the Sun became very thin Crescent of light, the Moon rushed in frame fields of the solar disk with such a flexibility that seemed to be spinning, as the upper millstone for the mill."

29 may 1919 — a triumph of Einstein.

"There is no doubt about what the Eclipse is the most important in history, and it happened in 1919, says Doug Duncan, an astronomer at the University of Colorado at boulder (USA). It was the Eclipse, which showed that the idea of Einstein that space-time can be distorted Verna".

Four years earlier, Einstein proposed the idea that gravity can warp space-time in his theory of General relativity in 1915. Total solar Eclipse of 1919 provided the first evidence in support of this theory.

"Astronomers wanted to capture a ray of light passing through the Sun to see if he will lean in," explains Duncan.

It turned out that the space is really deformed and it was seen in the photos.

Translated by «Yandex.Translator»