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Christopher Columbus’ Lunar Eclipse, and Other Brazen Bluffs From History

Khalid Elhassan February 20, 2025 14 min

Bluff - Christopher Columbus and the 1504 lunar eclipse — Christopher Columbus and the 1504 lunar eclipse. Science Photo Library

13. Upsetting the Hosts

Tables used in the Alamanach Perpetuum to predict eclipses. Eclectica Book Auction House

Understandably, getting attacked by Columbus’ men did not improve the locals’ opinion of the new arrivals. So they stopped bringing food to Columbus and his men. Faced with starvation and the possibility that the enraged Natives might fall upon the marooned men to massacre them, a desperate Columbus got an idea. It hit him while killing time leafing through an almanac, the Almanach Perpetuum, by Abraham Zacuto, that contained astronomical charts of solar and lunar eclipses from 1475 to 1506. Columbus noticed that a total lunar eclipse was due shortly, on the night of February 29^th, 1504. Armed with that foreknowledge, he arranged a meeting with the Native chieftain. Columbus stated that the Christian God was angry with the Natives for not feeding the new arrivals, and that, as seen below, He would demonstrate his wrath in alarming ways.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.