Halley’s Comet appeared in 1066—
When William the Conqueror took England.
Halley’s Comet is here to-day.—Kladderadatsch (Berlin).
989
The appearance of the Comet this year was marked by bloody wars all over Europe. The Lombards under Otho were harrying the ancient Roman Empire, while the heathen Danes and Wends ravaged Germany.
912
The Comet appeared early in the year and was seen over Germany, as noted in the chronicles of the monks of St. Gallus in Switzerland. Immediately after the appearance of the Comet, Germany was ravaged by war, both inside and outside, the Empire being invaded on all sides by the Danes in the North, the Slavs in the Northeast, and the Magyars from Hungary.
837
The Chinese Astronomers record two Comets for this year, one in February, and the other in April. But the modern view is that this was the same Comet, as seen going to the Sun, and afterward, when it was coming away from the Sun.
Immediately after the appearance of the Comet there followed a widespread rebellion in China with much bloodshed and fierce reprisals.
The only Christian record of the Comet we have is that of Eginard, an astrologer employed at the Court of Louis the Debonair, in France. This is Eginard’s account of the Comet: “In the midst of the holy festival of Easter there shone forth in our sky a sign always ominous and of sad foreboding. As soon as the Emperor—who was in the habit of gazing up into the sky at night—first saw the Comet, he had me called before him, together with another learned star gazer. As soon as I came before him he asked me what I thought of the sign in heaven.”
“‘Let me have but a little time,’ I asked of him, ‘that I may study this sign and see the exact constellation of the other stars around it, thus to gather from the stars the true meaning of this portent,’ promising him that I would tell him on the morrow of the results of my studies.