as i'm enjoying the lunar eclipse, my landlord told me to look up a story about christopher columbus and the lunar eclipse. enjoy:
Christopher Columbus and the Lunar Eclipse
About 500 years ago, Christopher Columbus was on his fourth voyage to
the New World. His earlier voyages were the stuff of legends.
Unfortunately there's an end to every good luck streak and on this
voyage, bad luck would strike in the form of worms. In the days of
wooden boats, worms would attack and bore holes in the wood which
eventually would cause leaking and ultimately sinking if repairs were
not made. Columbus had no choice but to beach his leaky ship on St.
Anne's Bay, Jamaica, and make repairs. Chris and his sailors spent over
a year there, most of it waiting for his lieutenant's ship to come and
help him.
The local Jamaican natives were quite fascinated with Columbus and his
men and were very nice to them. They provided Columbus and his sailors
with food and other supplies and helped them build shelters. In fact,
the Natives treated Columubs better than his own men treated him. The
sailor's on this voyage were a pretty rough bunch and had repeatedly
argued with Columbus, coming close to mutiny on several occasions.
Unfortunately, the sailors gave no better treatment to the Jamaicans,
and took advantage of them whenever they could, even cheating and
stealing from the Natives.
Eventually the Natives grew tired of being treated so badly and decided
to make a point and cut off the food supply to Columbus and his crew.
The sailors were more than willing to try and fight with the natives to
get what they wanted and they even argued with Columbus about it. But
Chris thought there was a better way to deal with these issues and he
asked the native chiefs to attend a meeting with him just before sunset
on February 29, 1504.
Columbus opened the meeting with a somber
announcement, "The Almighty was unhappy, He didn't like the way the
natives were treating Columbus and his sailors. The Almighty would now
show his disapproval by removing the Moon from the sky." One can only
imagine the natives sniggering over this announcement. No one, in their
opinion, could control the sky. Shortly thereafter, the full moon began
to appear over the eastern horizon. As the Sun set, the full moon rose,
and the sniggering probably continued.
And then, ever so subtly, the moon began to change. Sniggers were
replaced by an uneasiness. The Moon began to dim and turn a blood red
colour. Soon all eyes were riveted on the dimming orb. Clearly, as it
rose, there was something wrong. Not only was the Moon the colour of
blood, by the time the lunar disk was completely above the horizon, the
lower half of the Moon was missing!
Over the next few hours, little by little the Moon
became harder and harder to spot. A dim red orb hung in the sky where
once the brilliant Moon had bathed them in moonlight. It looked as if
the Moon had been reduced to a dim ghost of its former self.
Supposedly, the natives were terrified. It is doubtful that they had
never observed a lunar eclipse before, but they likely believed the
gods controlled such events, and now, here was a mere human who could
not only communicate with the gods but could predict his actions as
well! Clearly they were frightened by this display of power.
The natives pleaded with Columbus to return the
Moon to its former self. They promised food and anything else Columbus
or his men wanted. They begged for forgiveness With high drama, old
Chris told the natives he would just nip inside and seek a bit of
counsel with the Almighty and see if he was in the forgiving mood. In
this particular case, "the Almighty" was most likely an hourglass
clever Chris was using to time the 48 minute duration of totality.
Strolling casually back out from his ship, Columbus reappeared just
before totality ended and announced that the Almighty Power was indeed
in a forgiving mood and if the natives would thusly promise to provide
food for Columbus and his crew, the Almighty Power would have the Moon
reappear. Of course the Natives agreed and with much nodding, smiling
and posturing, the deal was sealed and quite soon thereafter, the Moon
was its former brilliant self.
Thereafter, it is doubtful that Columbus had much
trouble with the Natives. He probably even gained a bit more respect
from his sailors but one thing is for sure, Columbus did have a good
bit of knowledge from Persian, Greek, Islamic and European science. He
reportedly had an almanac which he used to schedule the meeting with
the Natives based on eclipse times! | 
