Battle of the Eclipse

May 28, 585 BCE: The Greek philosopher Thales lived in the seaside town of Miletus. He hypothesized that water was the source of all matter, and according to several accounts, he predicted the solar eclipse of May 28, 585 BCE. It’s unclear whether he really called it—or how he understood eclipses to work, especially given that he thought the Earth was a flat disk floating in water. But according to writings by Herodotus and the philosopher Xenophanes, Thales predicted a total solar eclipse.

On May 28, during a battle along the Halys River, the eclipse arrived. Herodotus wrote an account of this battle in The Histories, reporting that Thales had predicted the eclipse.