"...and Suddenly the Sun Turned Black!" Quiz

Answer: Syracuse

The Peloponnesian War was a long conflict pitting the Athenian-led Delian League against the Spartan-led Peloponnesian League. Athenians saw the rich and powerful Sicilian city-state of Syracuse as a threat: it was both strong enough to potentially control the island, and it was an ethnically Dorian city (like Sparta), whereas Athens and its allies were of Ionian origin. When the city of Segesta sought aid in a minor war against its longtime enemy Selinus, the Athenian assembly sent a sizeable fleet of over a hundred ships and some 5,000 troops. Not surprisingly, the people of Syracuse feared they were the true target of Athens' assault and responded accordingly.

The Athenians landed outside Syracuse in 415 BC and launched an inconclusive attack before pulling back for the winter. They then slowly built a series of walls around the city (weathering Syracusan counter-attacks along the way) and set their fleet in the harbour to complete the siege. Alas for Athens, Syracuse was soon reinforced by a sizeable Spartan army and Corinthian fleet. Athens' forces too were reinforced by a further seventy-three ships, but many of its soldiers had fallen ill, including their commander Nicias. He and the leaders of the reinforcements, Demosthenes and Eurymedon, decided to return to Athens.

Then, on August 28, 413 BC, there was an eclipse of the full moon. According to Plutarch's "Lives", 'This was a great terror to Nicias and all those who were ignorant or superstitious enough to quake at such a sight.... Men thought it uncanny - a sign sent from God in advance of divers great calamities.' Nicias consulted with soothsayers, who advised him to wait until the next full moon in the hope of better omens. He agreed, and the Syracusans took the opportunity to attack. The Athenians found their ships blockaded in the harbour, unable to manoeuvre, and eventually sunk. The survivors tried to flee overland only to be slaughtered.

Though a spectacular failure, the Syracusan expedition was not the turning point it could have been in the war. Athens recovered and went on to victoriously campaign from 410 to 406 BC before factional politics and Spartan military skill triumphed in 404 BC.

(I am aware that there are towns in New York called Sparta and Corinth, but I think only Syracuse is large enough properly to be called a city!)

Answer: Tiberius

Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome, died on August 19, AD 14. His successor Tiberius did not have an easy transition. Unhappy with the army's low pay, long years of service, and brutal discipline, soldiers in Pannonia and Germania (the regions along the Rhine and Danube rivers) mutinied. Tiberius immediately dispatched trusted men to deal with matters: his adoptive son and heir, Germanicus, went to Germania (appropriately enough) and his biological son, Drusus, to Pannonia.

Drusus managed to delay matters by telling the mutineers he had no authority to address their concerns and urged them to send representatives to Rome. The mutiny was further weakened by a lunar eclipse on September 27 - a seeming sign of divine disfavour. Once Drusus gained the upper hand, he used his advantage with extreme harshness, hunting down the revolt's ringleaders to most effectively suppress the mutiny.

Germanicus didn't receive any help from the heavens, but he still managed to deal with the revolt in Germania by ordering the departure from the army camp of his wife Agrippina and their son Gaius (better known to history as Caligula) from fear for their safety. Germanicus was extremely popular and Gaius was a sort of mascot for the men, who begged for his and Agrippina's return. Germanicus refused until they restored order, which they promptly did.

Germanicus and Drusus gained little from their successes in the long run: both were dead within a decade, under thoroughly unclear circumstances, which promoted much speculation about poison and assassination. Tiberius stuck it out until AD 37, embittered, isolated and increasingly paranoid. He was succeeded by the less-than-sane Gaius Caligula.

Answer: The death of his son, Ibrahim

The Prophet Muhammad was born in Mecca around 570, during the Year of the Elephant (so called because of an invasion by the Abyssinians who used elephants in battle) and shortly after a solar eclipse on November 24, 569.

Unlike the rather superstitious fellow of our question, Islamic theology does not see the eclipse as an omen of the great man's birth. This is because of Muhammad's response to the other notable eclipse of his lifetime (most commonly dated to January 27, 632), which coincided with the death of his infant son Ibrahim. Although some Meccans did indeed see this as a divine sign, Muhammad reportedly said, 'The sun and the moon are signs of God. They are eclipsed neither for the death nor birth of any man. On beholding an eclipse, therefore, remember God and turn to Him in prayer.'

Muhammad did not long outlive his son. Believing that his days were coming to an end, he asked his followers to join him on a final pilgrimage to Mecca. He passed away at Medina on June 8, 632, merely months after finishing the journey.

Answer: Treaty of Verdun

The son of Charlemagne, Louis the Pious was 'Roman' Emperor and King of the Franks from 814 to 840. Following the birth in 823 of his youngest son, Charles, Louis' attempts to provide a patrimony for his new heir were strongly resisted by his older sons Lothair, Louis the German and Pepin. From 829 to 840, his realm was embroiled in three civil wars.

The last of those three wars had only just been resolved when, on May 5, 840, there was a solar eclipse that lasted over five minutes. According to legend, the devout king had associated his father's death with a series of eclipses that had occurred between 807 and 810, and he saw this latest as a sign of his own forthcoming end. He died within months - allegedly of fright.

The Frankish Empire soon descended into yet another three-year civil war between Louis' three surviving sons. (Pepin had died in 838). These were finally resolved by the 843 Treaty of Verdun, where Frankish lands were divided between the three: Lothair received the low countries, northern Italy and eastern France; Louis the German (appropriately) received the bulk of Germany; and Charles the Bald received the rest of France. This was the end of the Carolingian empire, but also the seed of the modern-day nations of France and Germany.

Answer: By eating a surfeit of lampreys

Henry I Beauclerc was the fourth and youngest son of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and King of England. Landless on his father's death in 1087, Henry seized the English throne after the death of his brother William II in 1100. Following a brief war and a good deal of brotherly squabbling, he also claimed the Duchy of Normandy from his oldest brother Robert in 1106.

A wily and effective ruler, Henry skilfully managed complex relations with the nobles of England and Normandy while substantially expanding England's administrative system. His Lord Chancellor, Roger of Salisbury, created the royal exchequer, thus centralizing taxation.

Towards the end of his life, relations broke down with his daughter and heir, Matilda. When rebellion broke out among his subjects in Normandy, Matilda supported them and Henry had to leave England to deal with the problem. The next day, August 2, 1133, there was a solar eclipse, widely visible in both Germany and England and is documented in the Peterborough version of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle.

Henry never returned to England. In late November 1135, so the story goes, he dined against doctor's orders on an excessive quantity of lampreys (a type of jawless fish) and fell ill during the night. He died days later, on December 1st. His death prompted a succession crisis. Matilda, still in France to support the rebels, was unable to muster the support necessary to claim the throne, which was instead seized by her cousin Stephen of Blois. The resultant civil war would last most of Stephen's reign, until resolved by his agreement to make Matilda's son Henry his heir.

Answer: 1453

Formerly known as Byzantium, Constantinople was the capital city of the Eastern Roman (or Byzantine) Empire and the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church. At its height, it was largest and wealthiest city in Europe.

It was renowned for its impressive defences: successive city walls were constructed under the emperors Septimius Severus, Constantine the Great (the city's name-giver), and Theodosius II. The still-standing Theodosian walls consist of a 4-6 metre thick inner wall, a 2 metre thick outer wall, over a hundred towers, and a surrounding moat. Properly defended, the walls were nearly impregnable. Though besieged by Persians, Arabs, Bulgarians, Rus', European Crusaders, Nicaeans and finally the Ottoman Turks, they only fell twice: to the Crusaders in 1204 and to the Ottomans under Mehmed II in 1453.

This final siege began in April. The city's defenders numbered some 7,000 and the Ottomans had some 80,000 men (though contemporary sources provided exaggerated figures ranging from 160,000 to 300,000), a sizeable fleet, and exceptionally powerful cannons. Following several inconclusive attacks, there was a partial lunar eclipse on May 22, 1453: a 'red moon' seen as an omen of the city's fall. Six days later, Mehmed II started another, successful assault and Constantinople was taken for the second and last time. It is now, of course, Istanbul, the largest city (but not the capital) of the Republic of Turkey.

Answer: Christopher Columbus

Cristoforo Colombo (to give his Italian name) was born in the Republic of Genoa around 1451. He undertook four voyages under the patronage of the King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, hoping to find a western route to Asia. Instead, as we all know, he found America! He is no longer called its discoverer - Leif Eriksson did it first, and let's not forget the indigenous peoples! But his arrival undoubtedly led to the first permanent connections between the Old World and the New and, for better or for worse, marked the start of centuries of European exploration, expansions and conquest.

On June 30, 1503, during his fourth voyage, Columbus and his men ran aground on Jamaica. The indigenous Taíno were fascinated by the strange visitors and provided them with food, supplies and building materials. Sadly, Columbus' sailors were cruder than their hosts, and took to cheating and theft. After six months, the supplies ceased.

Fortunately, Columbus had with him an almanac with three decades worth of astronomical tables that predicted a lunar eclipse on February 29, 1504. He told the tribe's chief that his god was unhappy with his people's treatment of Columbus and his men, and would turn the moon red as a sign of his wrath. When the prediction proved true, the natives 'with great howling and lamentation ... came running from every direction to the ships, laden with provisions, praying the Admiral to intercede by all means with God on their behalf; that he might not visit his wrath upon them.' As the eclipse approached its end, Columbus magnanimously told them they would be forgiven. He remained on the island for another four months before being finally rescued; supplies were presumably no longer a problem...

Answer: The Battle of Tippecanoe

Tecumseh was a Shawnee warrior who grew up during the American Revolution and the Northeast Indian war. Understandably mistrustful of the Americans, he sought to establish an independent native confederacy in the Ohio Valley. His brother Tenskwatawa, called the Shawnee Prophet, was a one-eyed former alcoholic who had received a series of religious visions that led him to establish a movement to reject American guns, clothing and manners and return his people to their traditional ways.

William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana territory, felt he needed to curb the growing native confederation. He thus tried to discredit the brothers by casting doubt on the Prophet's alleged powers. 'If he is really a prophet,' he wrote, 'ask him to cause the Sun to stand still or the Moon to alter its course, the rivers to cease to flow or the dead to rise from their graves.' Fortunately, the brothers had already learned of a forthcoming solar eclipse (historians are uncertain how). Months before the event, Tenskwatawa told his followers, 'the Great Spirit [will take the Sun] into her hand and hide it from us. The darkness of night will thereupon cover us and the stars will shine round about us. The birds will roost and the night creatures will awaken and stir.' When the eclipse happened on cue on June 16, 1806, his people were duly impressed.

Tecumseh's confederacy continued to grow, attracting followers from many different tribes and establishing the settlement of Prophetstown near the Tippecanoe river. Tensions between the natives and the whites continued to rise, leading to the 1811 Battle of Tippecanoe, in which Harrison destroyed Prophetstown. Tecumseh regrouped, allying with the British against the Americans in the War of 1812 and eventually dying at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. Harrison, now nicknamed 'Old Tippecanoe', promoted his victory at Prophetstown as a crucial one (though many contemporaries and historians disagree), and used the slogan 'Tippecanoe and Tyler too' to win the Presidential election of 1840. Nowadays, he's likely most famous for serving a mere thirty days as president before dying of pneumonia!

Answer: Nat Turner

Nathaniel 'Nat' Turner was an American slave of Ghanaian descent in Southampton County, Virginia. Naturally inquisitive, he learned to read and write at an early age. He also became devoutly religious, experiencing visions that he saw as messages from God. By 1828, he was convinced he 'was ordained for some great purpose in the hands of the Almighty'. He felt that 'Christ had laid down the yoke he had borne for the sins of men, and that I should take it on and fight against the Serpent, for the time was fast approaching when the first should be last and the last should be first.'

On February 11, 1831, there was a solar eclipse that Turner saw as a black man's hand reaching over the sun. He saw this as the final sign he had been awaiting, and began planning rebellion in earnest, buying muskets and laying out his plans to his closest fellow slaves.

On August 21, Turner and his comrades began travelling from house to house, freeing blacks and indiscriminately killing whites. Not wanting to alert the authorities, the rebels abandoned their muskets and instead took down their victims with hatchets, knives, axes and blunt weapons. They spared a few poor-looking homes, but nonetheless slaughtered over 60 white men, women and children. As it progressed, the rebellion swelled to over 70 people, but was still suppressed within days. The state executed 56 blacks, and white militias massacred over a hundred more. Blacks across the south reaped bitter fruit, as hysteria led to (according to one newspaper) 'the slaughter of many blacks without trial and under circumstances of great barbarity.'

Turner himself survived in hiding until October 30, but was then captured and tried. He was inevitably found guilty, and hanged on November 11. After death, his body was flayed, beheaded and quartered.

Answer: Einstein's Theory of Relativity

Today, Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity is among the most famous scientific theories in the world, even if very few people properly understand it - the present author certainly doesn't, and apologizes in advance in case he got anything wrong! In 1919, it was a young and unproven, since it was derived mathematically rather than from observation. Most of the scientific community and wider world still embraced Newton's laws of universal gravitation. One area in which the two theories differed, and which could thus provide evidence for one or the other, was in how much light could be affected by gravity: according to relativity, it should bend about twice as much as predicted by Newton's laws. But such a minuscule difference seemed near impossible to measure.

Enter Sir Arthur Eddington, secretary of the Royal Astronomical Society. An early convert to Einstein's theories, Eddington became their main advocate in Britain. In 1917, he came up with an answer. A total solar eclipse was expected in May 1919, just as the sun was passing a bright cluster of stars. The light from the stars would have to pass through the sun's gravity to be seen on Earth, and would appear slightly displaced as a result. Measuring this displacement could provide evidence of Einstein's theories.

Eddington travelled to the (then) Portuguese island of Principe to make his observations, while a parallel expedition was sent to Sobral, Brazil. The results, published in November 1919, proved Einstein right. This was spectacular front-page news around the globe. A London "Times" headline read, 'Revolution in science. New theory of the universe. Newtonian ideas overthrown'. Across the Atlantic, "The Washington Post" wrote, 'New theory of space: has no absolute dimensions, nor has time, say Savants'. Einstein was instantly a celebrity, and remains arguably the most famous scientist of all time (and certainly of the twentieth century).