I will make the moon disappear tomorrow night!

I will make the moon disappear tomorrow night!

Just checking to see if people are so uneducated and unknowledgeable today about the lunar eclipse coming up that Columbus’s old gambit would still work:

An eclipse is credited with saving the life of Christopher Columbus and his crew in 1504. 

 

Stranded on the coast of Jamaica, the explorers were running out of food and faced with increasingly hostile local inhabitants who were refusing to provide them with any more supplies.

Columbus, looking at an astronomical almanac compiled by a German mathematician, realised that a total eclipse of the Moon would occur on February 29, 1504.

He called the native leaders and warned them if they did not cooperate, he would make the Moon disappear from the sky the following night.

The warning, of course, came true, prompting the terrified people to beg Columbus to restore the Moon — which he did, in return for as much food as his men needed. He and the crew were rescued on June 29, 1504.

"More like as opposed to an age where stoopidity was not ascendant. The propr era ..."

What Comes After the Knowledge System ..."
"Your question makes you more of a misanthrope than me."

What Comes After the Knowledge System ..."
"As opposed to what Age of Brilliancy, exactly?"

What Comes After the Knowledge System ..."
"Nothing is more practical or inescapable than trust. I have to trust that this or ..."

What Comes After the Knowledge System ..."

Browse Our Archives

Follow Us!