Posted on 11/06/2008 3:34:59 PM PST by SunkenCiv
When Julius Caesar arrived off the coast of Britain with his hundred-ship force in August, 55 b.c., he was greeted by a host of defenders poised to hurl spears down on his invading army from the towering Dover cliffs. Seeking a better landing site, he sailed on a strong afternoon current and landed his troops at a beach seven miles away, according to his own account.
Caesar neglected to mention, however, whether he sailed southwest or northeast.
The only shoreline within seven miles of Dover that matches Caesar's description lies to the northeast, near present-day Deal. That would settle it, except that the current flowed southwest from Dover on the afternoons of August 26 and 27 -- four days before the full moon, as Caesar obliquely reported the landing date. (It's unknown whether he counted the day of the full moon itself.) For centuries, the paradox has provoked debate among historians and astronomers.
Enter forensic astronomer Donald W. Olson of Texas State University in San Marcos. With a colleague and two honors students, Olson traveled to Britain in August 2007, when astronomical conditions almost exactly duplicated those of 55 b.c. They confirmed that on August 26 and 27, the afternoon current ran southwestward. But on the 22nd and 23rd, it flowed strongly northeastward, toward Deal...
The research was detailed in Sky & Telescope.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Enter forensic astronomer Donald W. Olson of Texas State University in San Marcos.
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Vey cool.
Maybe we can hire him to figure out where the Silent Majority was November 4th. :-)
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They're making this shit up now.
LMAO! I guess anybody can call themselves anything they want? Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?
And I NEED a frickin' laugh this week...my ladyfriend heard me laughing and said that she was happy to hear me laugh again.
Neat! I’m just now reading Gibbons’ The Lost Tomb and it was just discussing this very moment in history as the characters are hunting a document hidden by Claudius.
One of the first thing that Caesar did was to burn the Celtic fleets. The Celts were an ocean going people (perhaps like the Basques), and all of their tradition was lost upon being conquered.
We know that man sailed to Australia more than 50,000 years ago. I believe that oceangoing capabilities have been with us for a long time, but that we blind ourselves to the possibilities.
Sulking. And, it did a lot of good - right?
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