On May 3, 1715, a total solar eclipse occurred over Europe. A quiz on the event

◣

The English astronomer X is famous for, among other things, predicting the onset of the eclipse with an accuracy of four minutes. As a result, the event is also known as “X’s eclipse”. Name X.

◣

At the time the eclipse occurred, the date was April 22 and not May 3 (the year was 1715 in either case). The reason for this is that Great Britain would adopt the _________ ________ only 37 years later. Fill in the blanks.

◣

Before the eclipse occurred, the English cartographer John Senex had published maps of the eclipse’s path created by both X (in Q1) and Y in March. Y is famous for pushing the parliament of Great Britain to pass the Longitude Act in 1714. It promised rewards for anyone who devised a simple method to estimate a ship’s longitude while at sea. Name Y.

◣

While X (in Q1) had predicted the eclipse to within four minutes, he’d got the path of the eclipse wrong by around 30 km. X later realised he’d used the wrong lunar _________ (a table that describes the path of the moon). Fill in the blank.

◣

In 1686, X (in Q1) coined the name ‘_____’ to refer to a period of about 6,585.3 days, which could be used to predict the occurrence of solar and lunar eclipses. X said he was inspired by a term in an 11th century Byzantine book. Fill in the blank.

Questions and Answers to the previous day’s daily quiz: 1. This British football legend was the runner up for the Ballon D’Or in 1999. Ans: David Beckham

2. The party to which Tony Blair belonged to. Ans: Labour party. He was the U.K. Prime Minister for three terms

3. Identify this novel that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1932. Ans: The Good Earth by Pearl. S. Buck

4. This movie based on a popular comic book saga was released in 2008. Ans: Iron Man

5. This song by Pink Floyd was banned in South Africa. Ans: ‘Another Brick in Wall (Part II)’

Visual: The reason why May 2 is celebrated as International Harry Potter day. Ans: It is the day the battle of Hogwarts was fought and Lord Voldemort was defeated

Early Birds: Vasumann Yadav| Neha Vaddiparti| ViswanadhaRao Batchu| M. Suresh Kumar

Visual question: Name the man whose bust is depicted here. X (in Q1) succeeded to his title in 1720, and his work helped Y (in Q3) prepare the eclipse map.