From an article on eclipses in this morning’s Raleigh News & Observer:
My knee-jerk reaction: It seems unlikely, to say the least, that the Jamaicans had never seen an eclipse before … and the whole story sounds a lot like the sort of tall tale an explorer would tell about the ignorant natives, immediately prior to enslaving them. (Also, I’m really hoping it’s false so I can use it as an example of a questionable factoid when I teach freshman comp in the fall.) Does anybody know for sure?
There’s another thread here with a similar topic:
http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Forum3/HTML/005049.html
I don’t know how Columbus could have predicted one so quickly when he really didn’t know where he was, exactly, in relation to Europe where any earlier equations (however rough) might have been derived. Then again, I don’t know enough about the math involved - maybe one’s location is unnecessary, but at least that’s my theory.
Or even if other scientists in Europe had predicted an eclipse in Europe, and he knew that date, I don’t think an eclipse in Europe is always visible in Jamaica, too. If it really happened, maybe he just got lucky
So in roundabout way, I would say it’s unlikely to have happened. Of course, this story has been going around for a very very very long time, so maybe it is true to some degree.
I’d guess that this story was inspired by Mark Twain’s “A Connetecut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”.
Ursa- I’ll double-check my references, but I had always heard that this story inspired Mark Twain, not vice-versa.
JMCJ
Curmudgeon Of The Day Winner, 1/19/00
As Selected by RTFirefly
I don’t know if this story is true. If it is, you are almost certainly correct that they had seen lunar eclipses before. The reason is that these are seen by anyone who can see the moon at the right time, up to half of the earth. However, that doesn’t mean they thought of it as a purely natural event as we do today. They could still attribute it to the gods being angry. This would allow CC to take the credit for it, being influential with the gods or even one of them.
See above. If he knew there was going to be a lunar eclipse on that night, it was worth a shot to try to use it to control the natives because these are seen over very wide areas.
Solar eclipses are different. Partial ones are seen over smaller areas, and of course total solar eclipses are visible only in the path of totality which is 60 or so miles wide max.
This is why most people have seen multiple lunar eclipses, but very few have seen a total solar eclipse. I’m 48 and I’ve seen six or more lunar eclipses. I’ve also seen about four partial solar eclipses, but I’ve never seen a total solar eclipse. I traveled to Canada in '72 to see that total solar eclipse, but it became cloudy that day.
Jinx concurs: It is possible for a lunar eclipse to be visible in both Europe and Jamaica. I add that, contrary to public opinion, lunar eclipses are LESS COMMON than solar eclipses. The math shows you cannot have two subsequent lunar eclipses while you can have two subsequent solar events. Lunar eclipses simply cover a wider area (like your hand’s shadow when brought up close to a flashlight).
As for the natives, even if they had seen dozens of lunar eclipses before, it doesn’t mean they weren’t any less afraid! Even now, superstitions of all kinds are hard to break.
I have heard of this Columbus story, but I cannot confirm nor deny its validity. (Maybe this is where Twain got the plot device he used in “CT Yankee in King Arthur’s Court”?
CNN just ran this story on their website in an article about tonight’s eclipse. No references of course, so it could still be UL as far as I’m concerned. As for Columbus, supposedly he thought he was in India, half way around the world from Europe, how could the same eclipse, which lasts around 80 minutes, be visible in both places? Or did CC just take a chance out of desperation?
I’ll be viewing tonight’s from my hot tub, it’s at 10:00 or so CST.
How about the reverse hypothesis: Columbus, who was not an astronomical expert, assumed that an eclipse would automatically be visible over the whole world?
In brief, the time you quote is for the local event. This does not exclude the fact that there is a vast range of vantage points from which the proper perspective is achieved to witness the alignment.
Well, I think someone’s already posted somewhere that Columbus actually did think he was in India and apparently he thought the actual size of the globe to be much smaller. So assuming he gets both of those wrong, then he might have accidentally backed into the correct hypothesis that the eclipse was going to be visible at that particular time and place.
I’m too lazy to look it up… Does anyone know Columbus’ thoughts on the rotation of the earth and day/night? Could he have thought that he was on the opposite side of the world from Europe, yet that it was still going to be daytime and nighttime simultaneously in the two locations? What did he know of celestial mechanics? Just that the world was round, or did he know more?
According to this catalog of lunar eclipses, there was an eclipse on 3/1/1504. The technical info doesn’t say, but this date is probably Gregorian instead of Julian, so the date would’ve been 2/20/1504 Julian.
Let me slog through the math to see if that one was visible in Jamaica.
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
Johnnyharvard has shown that Columbus did, perhaps, prove that two wrongs may indeed make a right!
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
Thank you! Thank you!
And for my next trick, I’m gonna make this beer disappear…
Even if ol’ Chris didn’t know he wasn’t near India, he did know how far west of Europe he was. This info is important in figuring the altitude angle and time of the eclipse.
If there were accurate charts of eclipses in the 16th century, he at least could’ve known about it. Whether he used this to his advantage, who knows.
This was also a plot of a “McHale’s Navy” episode, only it was a solar eclipse triggered by ENS Parker flicking his cigarette lighter. 
Judges 14:9 - So [Samson] scraped the honey into his hands and went on, eating as he went. When he came to his father and mother, he gave some to them and they ate it; but he did not tell them that he had scraped the honey out of the body of the lion.
Oh, sure! Oldest Navy trick in the book. It’s in the “Sailor’s Guide to Survival Handbook”. 
Fretful Porpentine,
Nearly completely ignoring your original question and focusing on your next to last statement:
Recently, just prior to the celebrated Winter Solstice, I received a number of emails and even saw a story printed in a local tabloid. I’m looking, but I can’t find the message. The crux of it was that the Lakota Sioux, led by Chief Crazy Horse, attacked Fort Laramie, Wyoming on December 21st, 1866 (the date of the previous Winter Solstice). The article went on to make claims about the wisdom of the Chief in planning the attack during the unusually bright moon light and how the frontier settlers were surprised.
There was only a few of problems with this whole story. I doubted that the astronomy knowledge of the Lakota Sioux was sufficient to predict an event that occurs only once every 100 years or so. Plus, the folks at the fort were not likely to be too surprised since this was the second attack that week. An earlier attack had failed due to a miscommunication between Crazy Horse and one of his leaders. Finally, the clincher. The time of the attack and the victory was during the daylight. The battle was over before the moon ever had a chance to illuminate the activities.
Now if you can just track down the original factoid, maybe this would help. Sorry I can’t be more help than this - I will continue to get my hands on the original messages (I’m sure I tossed the newspaper).
Columbus didn’t really need to know where he was. He knew (presumably) where the moon had been, and when, last night. That would tell him where it would be, and when, on “eclipse night”. If the moon is visible during the eclipse, the eclipse is visible.
The only trick would be knowing when the eclipse would occur local time; it wouldn’t be as impressive a prediction if it didn’t occur on command or was mostly over before the moon actually rose. Without accurate chronometers… which I didn’t think they had in the late 15th century, at least not ones that would be accurate during a protracted ocean voyage… it might have been tricky for him to know what time it was back in Europe when it was noon in Jamaica.
Actually Torq, that’s what I was trying to ask? Not did Columbus really know the size of the difference in time between Jamaica and Europe, rather, did he know there was any difference at all? I would assume he had some inkling, but since people traveled so slowly in those days, and instantaneous communication was unavailable, I would not expect for Columbus to have said “I traveled 2000 miles, therefore I am 4 hours ahead of Spain and the eclipse will occur at the point in the sky” (or whatever the actual facts may be)
Prediction of lunar eclipses is taken for granted now days. The mathematics is fairly abstruse, given the time period. With the inability to even fix longitude, and the absence, of either pendulum clocks, (Christiaan Hyugens wouldn’t even be born until 1629) or the compilation of long term data on positional astronomy (Tycho Brahe waiting until 1546 for his first observations of any sort, and those not astronomical) Christo seems to be fairly far out on a limb with his prediction. While it may be true that very skilled practitioners of astrology would have a good idea of the day on which a lunar eclipse would occur, (I doubt it, but it is possible) the proposition that a navigator would study such information is fairly farfetched.
I have a pretty fair interest in astronomy, and a pretty good memory. I haven’t a clue when the next lunar eclipse is going to happen. (Other than the one tonight, I mean.) I saw one, when I was a kid and another when my youngest son was just a kid. Couldn’t tell you the dates for a dollar. Not even for David B’s infamous $10,000! While there were probably at least a few erudite scholars interested in such things at that time, sharing of knowledge was not the rule of science in the Sixteenth Century. Such arcana were guarded, and revealed only to the trusted acolytes of the masters.
Navigation was an art, not a science, in the days of Christopher Columbus. Currents, wind, weather, and performance of ships were the stuff of navigation, in the days of the Great Explorers. Yes, you needed to know the exact direction of North. The constellations visible from the various latitudes, in the various seasons, and the latitudes of the important features of the “Known World.” Given that Chris didn’t even update his charts from the time of Ptolemy leaves one to wonder if he kept up his subscription to Astrology Today.
The road to truth is long, and lined the entire way with annoying bastards.
–** Alexander Jablokov**, The Place of No Shadows