“And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.” Joel 2:30, 31. “The sun and the moon shall be darkened, and the stars shall withdraw their shining.” Joel 3:15. “For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.” Isa. 13:10. “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in a clear day.” Amos 8:9.
9. When were the sun and moon darkened?
May 19, 1780.
Notes.—“The nineteenth of May, 1780, was a remarkably dark day. Candles were lighted in many houses. The birds were silent, and disappeared. The fowls retired to roost. It was the general opinion that the day of judgment was at hand. The legislature of Connecticut was in session at Hartford, but being unable to transact business, adjourned.”—President Dwight, in “Historical Collections.”
“In some places persons could not see to read common print in the open air for several hours together. Birds sang their evening song, disappeared, and became silent; fowls went to roost; cattle sought the barn-yard; and candles were lighted in the houses. The obscuration began about ten o'clock in the morning, and continued until the middle of the next night, but with differences of degree and duration in different places.... The true causes of this remarkable phenomenon are not known.”—Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, edition 1883, page 1604, in article “The Dark Day.”
Herschel, the great astronomer, says: “The dark day in Northern America was one of those wonderful phenomena of nature which will always be read with interest, but which philosophy is at a loss to explain.” [pg 321] The darkness was not caused by any eclipse of the sun by the moon, for the moon had fulled only the night before, and consequently was on the opposite side of the earth from the sun.
“The darkness of the following evening was probably as deep and dense as ever had been observed since the Almighty first gave birth to light; it wanted only palpability to render it as extraordinary as that which overspread the land of Egypt in the days of Moses. If every luminous body in the universe had been shrouded in impenetrable shades, or struck out of existence, it was thought the darkness could not have been more complete. A sheet of white paper, held within a few inches of the eyes, was equally invisible with the blackest velvet.”—“Our First Century,” by R. M. Devins, page 94.
The darkness of the night was as supernatural as that of the previous day, from the fact, as stated by Dr. Adams, that “the moon had fulled the day before.”
10. When was there a remarkable display of falling stars?
Nov. 13, 1833.