Eclipse of Thales - wikipedia Eclipse of Thales Eclipse occurred in May 28, 585 BC. The Eclipse of Thales was a solar eclipse that was, according to The Histories of Herodotus, accurately predicted by the Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus. If Herodotus 's account is accurate, this eclipse is the earliest recorded as being known in advance of its occurrence. Many historians believe that the predicted eclipse was the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BC. How exactly Thales predicted the eclipse remains uncertain ; some historians claim the eclipse was never predicted at all. Others have argued for different dates. According to Herodotus, the appearance of the eclipse was interpreted as an omen, and interrupted a battle in a long - standing war between the Medes and the Lydians. The fighting immediately stopped, and they agreed to a truce. Because astronomers can calculate the dates of historical eclipses, Isaac Asimov described this battle as the earliest historical event whose date is known with precision to the day and described the prediction as `` the birth of science ''. Contents 1 Herodotus ' account 2 Thales ' prediction 3 The eclipse 4 See also 5 References 6 External links Herodotus ' account Main article : Battle of the Eclipse Herodotus ' The Histories 1.73 - 74 states that a war started in the period between the Medes and the Lydians. There were two reasons for the war ; the two sides ' clashing interests in Anatolia, but also there was a motive of revenge. Some Scythian hunters employed by the Medes who once returned empty - handed were insulted by King Cyaxares. In revenge the hunters slaughtered one of his sons and served him to the Medes. The hunters then fled to Sardis, the capital of the Lydians. When Cyaxares asked for the Scythians to be returned to him, Alyattes II refused to hand them over ; in response, the Medes invaded. Afterwards, on the refusal of Alyattes to give up his suppliants when Cyaxares sent to demand them of him, war broke out between the Lydians and the Medes, and continued for five years, with various success. In the course of it the Medes gained many victories over the Lydians, and the Lydians also gained many victories over the Medes. Among their other battles there was one night engagement. As, however, the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on. As part of the terms of the peace agreement, Alyattes 's daughter Aryenis was married to Cyaxares 's son Astyages, and the Halys River ( now known as the Kızılırmak River ) was declared to be the border of the two warring nations. An alternative theory regarding the date of the battle suggests that Herodotus was carelessly recounting events that he did not personally witness, and that furthermore the solar eclipse story is a misinterpretation of his text. According to this view, what happened could have been a lunar eclipse right before moonrise, at dusk. If the warriors had planned their battle activities expecting a full moon as in the previous few days, it would have been quite a shock to have dusk fall suddenly as an occluded moon rose. If this theory is correct, the battle 's date would be not 585 BC ( date given by Pliny based on date of solar eclipse ), but possibly 3 Sept 609 BC or 4 July 587 BC, dates when such dusk - time lunar eclipses did occur. Thales ' prediction While doubt has been cast on the truth of the story, there are other accounts of it besides that of Herodotus. Diogenes Laertius says that Xenophanes, who lived in the same century as Thales, was impressed with the prediction, and he also gives additional testimonies from the pre-Socratics Democritus and Heraclitus. At the time of Thales ' purported prediction it was not yet known that eclipses were caused by the Moon coming between the Earth and the Sun, a fact that would not be discovered until over a century later by either Anaxagoras or Empedocles. If the account is true, it has been suggested that Thales would have had to calculate the timing of any eclipse by recognizing patterns in the periodicities of eclipses. It has been postulated that Thales may have used the Saros cycle in his determination, or that he may have had some knowledge of Babylonian astronomy, but as there is no known cycle that can be reliably used to predict an eclipse for a given location, any accurate prediction would have been down to luck. The eclipse The eclipse peaked over the Atlantic Ocean at 37 ° 54 ′ N 46 ° 12 ′ W ﻿ / ﻿ 37.9 ° N 46.2 ° W ﻿ / 37.9 ; - 46.2 ﻿ ( Battle of Halys eclipse peak ) and the umbral path reached south - western Anatolia in the evening hours, and the Halys River is just within the error margin for delta - T provided. See also Mursili 's eclipse Eclipse of Bur Sagale References Jump up ^ ( This date is based on the proleptic Julian calendar, which does not include a `` year zero '' ; astronomically the year is - 584. ) ^ Jump up to : Eclipse path map from NASA http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEsearch/SEsearchmap.php?Ecl=-05840528 Jump up ^ Stephenson, F. Richard, and Louay J. Fatoohi. `` Thale 's Prediction of a Solar Eclipse. '' Journal for the History of Astronomy 28 ( 1997 ) : 279 Jump up ^ `` Happy Birthday to Science '', by Tom Mandel, at the Chicago Sun - Times ( archived at HighBeam Research ) ; published May 28, 1990 ; retrieved April 11, 2014 Jump up ^ The Histories. Herodotus. ^ Jump up to : Thomas D. Worthen, `` Herodotus 's Report on Thales 's Eclipse, '' Electronic Antiquity vol. 3.7 ( May 1997 ), ( 1 ) and Thomas De Voe Worthen, `` The Eclipse of 585 BCE '' ^ Jump up to : Panchenko, D. ( 2004 ). `` Thales 's Prediction of a Solar Eclipse ''. Journal for the History of Astronomy : 275 --. Jump up ^ Westfall, John ; Sheehan, William ( 2014 ). Celestial Shadows : Eclipses, Transits, and Occultations. Springer. p. 109. ISBN 978 - 1 - 4939 - 1535 - 4. K. Leloux, `` The Battle of the Eclipse ( May 28, 585 BC ) : A Discussion of the Lydo - Median treaty and the Halys border '', in Polemos, 19 - 2 ( 2016 ), pp. 31 -- 54 Alden A. Mosshammer, `` Thales ' Eclipse '', Transactions of the American Philological Association, Vol. 111, 1981, pp. 145 -- 55 ( JSTOR ) G.B. Airy, `` On the Eclipses of Agathocles, Thales, and Xerxes '', Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 143, 1853, pp. 179 -- 200 Herodotus, The Histories, translated by Robin Waterfield, ( 1998 ). New York : Oxford University Press. ISBN 0 - 19 - 282425 - 2 Tony Jacques : Dictionary of Battles And Sieges : A Guide to 8,500 Battles from Antiquity Through the Twenty - first Century. F-O Greenwood Publishing Group 2007, ISBN 0 - 313 - 33536 - 2, p. 428 ( Auszug, p. 428, at Google Books ) External links Wired.com : May 28, 585 B.C. : Predicted Solar Eclipse Stops Battle Solar eclipses Lists of eclipses By century Antiquity 20th BC 19th BC 18th BC 17th BC 16th BC 15th BC 14th BC 13th BC 12th BC 11th BC 10th BC 9th BC 8th BC 7th BC 6th BC 5th BC 4th BC 3rd BC 2nd BC 1st BC 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 10th 11th 12th 13th 14th 15th 16th 17th 18th 19th 20th 21st 22nd 23rd 24th 25th 26th 27th 28th 29th 30th Saros series 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 Visibility Australia China Philippines Russia Ukraine United Kingdom United States Historical Mursili 's eclipse ( 1312 BC ) Assyrian eclipse ( 763 BC ) Eclipse of Thales ( 585 BC ) Total / hybrid eclipses → symbol denotes next total / hybrid eclipse 1560 Aug 21 1598 Mar 7 1652 Apr 8 1654 Aug 12 1673 Aug 12 1699 Sep 23 1715 May 3 1724 May 22 1766 Feb 9 1778 Jun 24 1780 Oct 27 1806 Jun 16 1816 Nov 19 1824 Jun 26 1842 Jul 8 1851 Jul 28 1853 Nov 30 1857 Mar 25 1858 Sep 7 1860 Jul 18 1865 Apr 25 1867 Aug 29 1868 Aug 18 1869 Aug 7 1870 Dec 22 1871 Dec 12 1874 Apr 16 1875 Apr 6 1878 Jul 29 1882 May 17 1883 May 6 1885 Sep 8 1886 Aug 29 1887 Aug 19 1889 Jan 1 1889 Dec 22 1893 Apr 16 1896 Aug 9 1898 Jan 22 1900 May 28 1901 May 18 1903 Sep 21 1904 Sep 9 1905 Aug 30 1907 Jan 14 1908 Jan 3 1908 Dec 23 1909 Jun 17 1910 May 9 1911 Apr 28 1912 Apr 17 1912 Oct 10 1914 Aug 21 1916 Feb 3 1918 Jun 8 1919 May 29 1921 Oct 1 1922 Sep 21 1923 Sep 10 1925 Jan 24 1926 Jan 14 1927 Jun 29 1928 May 19 1929 May 9 1930 Apr 28 1930 Oct 21 1932 Aug 31 1934 Feb 14 1936 Jun 19 1937 Jun 8 1938 May 29 1939 Oct 12 1940 Oct 1 1941 Sep 21 1943 Feb 4 1944 Jan 25 1944 Jul 20 1945 Jul 9 1947 May 20 1948 Nov 1 1950 Sep 12 1952 Feb 25 1954 Jun 30 1955 Jun 20 1956 Jun 8 1957 Oct 23 1958 Oct 12 1959 Oct 2 1961 Feb 15 1962 Feb 5 1963 Jul 20 1965 May 30 1966 Nov 12 1967 Nov 2 1968 Sep 22 1970 Mar 7 1972 Jul 10 1973 Jun 30 1974 Jun 20 1976 Oct 23 1977 Oct 12 1979 Feb 26 1980 Feb 16 1981 Jul 31 1983 Jun 11 1984 Nov 22 1985 Nov 12 1986 Oct 3 1987 Mar 29 1988 Mar 18 1990 Jul 22 1991 Jul 11 1992 Jun 30 1994 Nov 3 1995 Oct 24 1997 Mar 9 1998 Feb 26 1999 Aug 11 2001 Jun 21 2002 Dec 4 2003 Nov 23 2005 Apr 8 2006 Mar 29 2008 Aug 1 2009 Jul 22 2010 Jul 11 2012 Nov 13 2013 Nov 3 2015 Mar 20 2016 Mar 9 2017 Aug 21 → 2019 Jul 2 2020 Dec 14 2021 Dec 4 2023 Apr 20 2024 Apr 8 2026 Aug 12 2027 Aug 2 2028 Jul 22 2030 Nov 25 2031 Nov 14 2033 Mar 30 2034 Mar 20 2035 Sep 2 2037 Jul 13 2038 Dec 26 2039 Dec 15 2041 Apr 30 2042 Apr 20 2043 Apr 9 2044 Aug 23 2045 Aug 12 2046 Aug 2 2048 Dec 5 2049 Nov 25 2050 May 20 2052 Mar 30 2053 Sep 12 2055 Jul 24 2057 Jan 5 2057 Dec 26 2059 May 11 2060 Apr 30 2061 Apr 20 2063 Aug 24 2064 Aug 12 2066 Dec 17 2067 Dec 6 2068 May 31 2070 Apr 11 2071 Sep 23 2072 Sep 12 2073 Aug 3 2075 Jan 16 2076 Jan 6 2077 May 22 2078 May 11 2079 May 1 2081 Sep 3 2082 Aug 24 2084 Dec 27 2086 Jun 11 2088 Apr 21 2089 Oct 4 2090 Sep 23 2091 Aug 15 2093 Jan 27 2094 Jan 16 2095 Jun 2 2096 May 22 2097 May 11 2099 Sep 14 2100 Sep 4 2114 Jun 3 2132 Jun 13 2150 Jun 25 2168 Jul 5 2186 Jul 16 Annular eclipses → symbol denotes next annular eclipse 1820 Sep 7 1854 May 26 1879 Jan 22 1889 Jun 28 1901 Nov 11 1903 Mar 29 1904 Mar 17 1905 Mar 6 1907 Jul 10 1908 Jun 28 1911 Oct 22 1914 Feb 25 1915 Feb 14 1915 Aug 10 1916 Jul 30 1917 Dec 14 1918 Dec 3 1919 Nov 22 1921 Apr 8 1922 Mar 28 1923 Mar 17 1925 Jul 20 1926 Jul 9 1927 Jan 3 1929 Nov 1 1932 Mar 7 1933 Feb 24 1933 Aug 21 1934 Aug 10 1935 Dec 25 1936 Dec 13 1937 Dec 2 1939 Apr 19 1940 Apr 7 1941 Mar 27 1943 Aug 1 1945 Jan 14 1947 Nov 12 1948 May 9 1950 Mar 18 1951 Mar 7 1951 Sep 1 1952 Aug 20 1954 Jan 5 1954 Dec 25 1955 Dec 14 1957 Apr 30 1958 Apr 19 1959 Apr 8 1961 Aug 11 1962 Jul 31 1963 Jan 25 1965 Nov 23 1966 May 20 1969 Mar 18 1969 Sep 11 1970 Aug 31 1972 Jan 16 1973 Jan 4 1973 Dec 24 1976 Apr 29 1977 Apr 18 1979 Aug 22 1980 Aug 10 1981 Feb 4 1983 Dec 4 1984 May 30 1987 Sep 23 1988 Sep 11 1990 Jan 26 1991 Jan 15 1992 Jan 4 1994 May 10 1995 Apr 29 1998 Aug 22 1999 Feb 16 2001 Dec 14 2002 Jun 10 2003 May 31 2005 Oct 3 2006 Sep 22 2008 Feb 7 2009 Jan 26 2010 Jan 15 2012 May 20 2013 May 10 2014 Apr 29 2016 Sep 1 2017 Feb 26 → 2019 Dec 26 2020 Jun 21 2021 Jun 10 2023 Oct 14 2024 Oct 2 2026 Feb 17 2027 Feb 6 2028 Jan 26 2030 Jun 1 2031 May 21 2032 May 9 2034 Sep 12 2035 Mar 9 2038 Jan 5 2038 Jul 2 2039 Jun 21 2041 Oct 25 2042 Oct 14 2043 Oct 3 2044 Feb 28 2045 Feb 16 2046 Feb 5 2048 Jun 11 2049 May 31 2052 Sep 22 2053 Mar 20 2056 Jan 16 2056 Jul 12 2057 Jul 1 2059 Nov 5 2060 Oct 24 2061 Oct 13 2063 Feb 28 2064 Feb 17 2066 Jun 22 2067 Jun 11 2070 Oct 4 2071 Mar 31 2074 Jan 27 2074 Jul 24 2075 Jul 13 2077 Nov 15 2078 Nov 4 2079 Oct 24 2081 Mar 10 2082 Feb 27 2084 Jul 3 2085 Jun 22 2085 Dec 16 2088 Oct 14 2089 Apr 10 2092 Feb 7 2092 Aug 3 2093 Jul 23 2095 Nov 27 2096 Nov 15 2097 Nov 4 2099 Mar 21 2100 Mar 10 Partial eclipses → symbol denotes next partial eclipse 1902 Apr 8 1902 May 7 1902 Oct 31 1906 Feb 23 1906 Jul 21 1906 Aug 20 1909 Dec 12 1910 Nov 2 1913 Apr 6 1913 Aug 31 1913 Sep 30 1916 Dec 24 1917 Jan 23 1917 Jun 19 1917 Jul 19 1920 May 18 1920 Nov 10 1924 Mar 5 1924 Jul 31 1924 Aug 30 1927 Dec 24 1928 Jun 17 1928 Nov 12 1931 Apr 18 1931 Sep 12 1931 Oct 11 1935 Jan 5 1935 Feb 3 1935 Jun 30 1935 Jul 30 1938 Nov 21 1942 Mar 16 1942 Aug 12 1942 Sep 10 1946 Jan 3 1946 May 30 1946 Jun 29 1946 Nov 23 1949 Apr 28 1949 Oct 21 1953 Feb 14 1953 Jul 11 1953 Aug 9 1956 Dec 2 1960 Mar 27 1960 Sep 20 1964 Jan 14 1964 Jun 10 1964 Jul 9 1964 Dec 4 1967 May 9 1968 Mar 28 1971 Feb 25 1971 Jul 22 1971 Aug 20 1974 Dec 13 1975 May 11 1975 Nov 3 1978 Apr 7 1978 Oct 2 1982 Jan 25 1982 Jun 21 1982 Jul 20 1982 Dec 15 1985 May 19 1986 Apr 9 1989 Mar 7 1989 Aug 31 1992 Dec 24 1993 May 21 1993 Nov 13 1996 Apr 17 1996 Oct 12 1997 Sep 2 2000 Feb 5 2000 Jul 1 2000 Jul 31 2000 Dec 25 2004 Apr 19 2004 Oct 14 2007 Mar 19 2011 Jan 4 2011 Jun 1 2011 Jul 1 2011 Nov 25 2014 Oct 23 2015 Sep 13 → 2018 Feb 15 2018 Jul 13 2018 Aug 11 2019 Jan 6 2022 Apr 30 2022 Oct 25 2025 Mar 29 2025 Sep 21 2029 Jan 14 2029 Jun 12 2029 Jul 11 2032 Nov 3 2033 Sep 23 2036 Feb 27 2036 Jul 23 2036 Aug 21 2037 Jan 16 2040 May 11 2040 Nov 4 2047 Jan 26 2047 Jun 23 2047 Jul 22 2047 Dec 16 2050 Nov 14 2051 Apr 11 2051 Oct 4 2054 Mar 9 2054 Aug 3 2054 Sep 2 2055 Jan 27 2058 May 22 2058 Jun 21 2058 Nov 16 2062 Mar 11 2062 Sep 3 2065 Feb 5 2065 Jul 3 2065 Aug 2 2065 Dec 27 2068 Nov 24 2069 Apr 21 2069 May 20 2069 Oct 15 2072 Mar 19 2073 Feb 7 2076 Jun 1 2076 Jul 1 2076 Nov 26 2083 Feb 16 2083 Jul 15 2083 Aug 13 2084 Jan 7 2086 Dec 6 2087 May 2 2087 Jun 1 2087 Oct 26 2090 Mar 31 2091 Feb 18 2094 Jun 13 2094 Jul 12 2094 Dec 7 2098 Apr 1 2098 Sep 25 2098 Oct 24 Other bodies Mars Moon Jupiter Neptune Pluto Saturn Uranus Related topics Eclipse chasing Solar viewer Solar eclipses in fiction Book Commons Portal WikiProject Retrieved from `` https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Eclipse_of_Thales&oldid=801582875 '' Categories : 585 BC 6th - century BC conflicts Battles involving Lydia Battles involving the Medes Solar eclipses 6th century BC Ancient astronomy Talk Contents About Wikipedia Deutsch Ελληνικά فارسی Polski Edit links This page was last edited on 20 September 2017, at 15 : 35. 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Question: when was the first total solar eclipse predicted
Answer: The Eclipse of Thales