This picture of a total solar eclipse in 1851 was taken by Johann Berkowski. Johann Bergowski One of the final highlights of 2020 will be the darkening of the sun. Fortunately, this is temporary and is only expected to be due to a separate solar eclipse of the year. Unlike the major eclipse at least seen by many Americans in 2017, the 2020 eclipse on Dec. 14 will be seen only from the southern tip of South America and the Atlantic and Pacific regions. Although it can be viewed from anywhere via livestream. Although the total solar eclipse lasts only a few minutes, the rare event has a long history of briefly exposing all sorts of odd reactions from blankets to humans in broad daylight. The Vikings made a loud noise to scare the two wolves, Skol and Hadi. In Norse mythology the sun and moon chased and caught them from time to time, causing eclipses. Centuries later, a woman worried about the doomsday associated with the 1748 solar eclipse “locked herself in a room and cut off her arm,” says the London Evening Post at the time. In previous centuries the understanding of what caused these star abductions was very widespread. But we are enlightened, modern people are not immune. From the lab to your inbox. Get the latest science fiction stories from CNET every week. In her 1979 article, Total Eclipse, Annie Tillard recalled the screams of terror and / or excitement as she watched a solar eclipse spread across Washington state in 1979. Even Steve Ruskin, an astronomer and author of the first major eclipse in the United States, discovered a common character. “I have read eclipses throughout history and find it very surprising that, regardless of the duration or scientific knowledge (or lack thereof), human responses to an eclipse are consistently, globally, expressions of awe and wonder, and of fear and terror,” Ruskin told me. According to ancient myths and legends, Norse wolves are not the only creatures that cause eclipses by swallowing the sun. Maya, who learned to predict eclipses, sometimes depicted them as a giant snake. The Incas seemed to believe that a jaguar had swallowed the moon to cause a lunar eclipse. “A unique and often unknown response to the eclipse is found in the 1886 account of the Australian aborigines,” says Ruskin. They say “the eclipse is believed to have been caused by another tribe on the moon, a people who are sick and angry, taking the Australian aborigines below their ‘bad mood’.” Description of an eclipse 1613. m. During the eclipse they often put a commoner on the throne so that if some real dark deeds happen to the king they will fall on the fake king instead. After the eclipse, Regal was rewarded for his service by killing the stand-in, making sure any bad eclipse companions died with him. Court astronomers in ancient China faced a similar fate when they failed to predict an eclipse. They were drunk. The 4,000-year-old story inspired a poem that was sent centuries later: “Here lies the bodies of Ho and Hi, whose fate is tragically known and hanged because they could not spy on the invisible Teklips.” The most famous solar eclipse in 1133 coincided with the death of King I. Debatable. Chaos and civil war followed. An eclipse in Turkey in 585 BC had the opposite effect. The fighting forces took it as a sign from the gods that they should probably try to get along. As it goes, the story goes, the 15-year fight came to an abrupt end. Now playing: Look at this: solar eclipse shakes millions across America, look at all this 1:41 Mind, after the eclipse of 647 BC, the Greek poet Archilocus considered other tricks that the gods might have for the men below: “After this, men can trust anything, expect anything.” None of you should be surprised in the future if terrestrial animals move with dolphins and live in their salt grazing lands, and dolphins love the mountains more than they like the sound waves of the ocean. ” , The locals fed their group better or convinced the locals that there was a danger of angering his God. The arrival of the eclipse helped Columbus subjugate the Native people. History’s strange response to total solar eclipses is one of the least frantic. When the early morning sun set in Europe in 1230, local workers never thought about it. According to Ventover historian Roger, they went back to bed and should be surprised when the sun regained its natural brightness within an hour. Even more shocked to see the sun go down, Ruskin says, “(mostly, (eclipses) were a source of fear and anxiety.” “There were no scientific explanations for the movement of the earth until the so-called European scientific revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries. The sun and moon tended to alleviate such concerns, at least among Europeans.” This scientific enlightenment allowed us to take deep breaths and look around during eclipses. The phenomenon also has an odd effect on animals. John Koch Adams wrote of an eclipse of the 19th century: “A crow is the only animal near me; it is very stunned, bent, and flies back and forth near the ground.” Scientific interest in eclipses has also sparked some troubling attempts, such as Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleev using a balloon to view the 1887 eclipse from a height of 2 miles in the air. So looking back now at some of the irrational, unreasonable and obvious bizarre reactions to this trigonometric trick, try to judge. Even today, the myth that an eclipse is somehow a danger to pregnant women persists. When the thing that sustains all life suddenly disappears from the sky, who is to say that it should not trigger some deep primary intuition that overwhelms the most rational responses of the conscious mind? If you can get a chance to find out first then go somewhere on the whole track on December 14th. 2020 Percussion meteor shower photos shine brightly in the dark year View all photos