Total Eclipse of The Dirt

Turn around, bright eyes! In anticipation of the Great North American eclipse coming up on Monday, April 8, 2024, we're scooting in front of this topic like the moon in front of the sun. We're looking at some of the earliest record-keeping of solar eclipses, some eclipse history (eclipstory!) and some mythology and cosmology around the phenomenon. Plus...a truly delightful fact about the song Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Sources:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsonian-institution/what-folklore-tells-us-about-eclipses-180964488/

https://www.jstor.org/stable/15768

https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001276245

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/how-did-the-ancients-predicted-eclipses-the-saros-cycle/

https://ctext.org/shang-shu/punitive-expedition-of-yin

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1006543

https://www.loc.gov/resource/gdcwdl.wdl_11621/?st=gallery

https://www.jstor.org/stable/671227