Posts tagged as:

astronomy

The celestial apocalypse of 1859

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Of Bloodletting and Birthdays

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By Holly Tucker
I won’t divulge my age, but I will mention that a birthday on November 3 makes me a Scorpio.
And because this blog is about history and not me, I’ll use this opportunity to transition into a discussion of bloodletting.
How’s that for a fluid transition?
Astrology and astronomy were not two separate fields in the [...]

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Telling Time in Early Europe

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By Holly Tucker

What time is it, you say? If you were living before the 18th century, you would not look at your wrist watch. No, you’d slip a portable sundial out of your pocket. The more complex sundials could also be converted to moon dials that indicated the time according to the amount of moonlight [...]

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