Welcome to Interesting If True, the podcast that… I'm your host this week, Shea, and with me is my buddy ol’ pal, Aaron! I'm Aaron, and this week I learned that most eclipse totalities are only a few minutes, but the longest possible duration of totality is 7 minutes 31 seconds according to math. That is, apparently, a true. This Week’s Beer Kokanee - It’s from a Glacier! What can I say, we were in a bit of hurry. Regular beer reviews will resume next week! * Aaron: 7* Shea: 10 Learning about ancient cultures has always been a hobby of mine, especially their myths and legends. I was surfing the net the other day and kept coming across stories about natural phenomena and I really wanted to know how ancient cultures would have dealt with these seemingly terrifying events. So today I give you… Solar Eclipse of the Heart As the Earth and moon sweep through space in their annual journey around the sun, the three bodies align in such a way that the Earth passes into the shadow of the moon. Observers then witness a sun that is gradually covered and uncovered by the moon’s disk – a spectacular celestial event. But until astronomers were able to explain this phenomenon, a solar eclipse could be a terrifying event. In many cultures throughout human history, the sun was seen as an entity of supreme importance, crucial to their very existence. It was regularly worshipped as a god – Amun-Ra to the Egyptians and Helios to the Greeks – or as a goddess, such as Amaterasu for the Japanese and Saule for many Baltic cultures. One reason the sun served as a god or goddess in so many cultures was its awesome power: Looking directly at it would severely damage the eyes, a sign of the sun deity’s wrath. The idea that the sun deity could be temporarily extinguished in a total eclipse inspired a number of imaginative explanations. Most involve some sort of evil entity trying to devour the sun. Such myths undoubtedly arose from the fact that during the early stages of a solar eclipse, the sun appears to have a bite taken out of it. Several East Asian cultures believed the eclipse was caused by a giant frog eating the sun, and in China, myths tell of a dragon doing the deed.. In Norse mythology, the eclipse was the result of two sky wolves, Sköll and Hati, chasing and finally eating the sun, leading to its temporary disappearance. Ancient civilizations often created their own imaginative explanations that fit into their established mythology. Some ancient civilizations, such as the Greeks and Chinese, already had the advanced ability to predict eclipses, but this knowledge did not always pass down to the common people, leaving much room for superstition and speculation. The ancient Greeks believed that an eclipse was a punishment and abandonment; the English word “eclipse” is derived from the Greek “ekleípō”, meaning disappearance. The Greeks (or at least those who were uninvolved in the scientific community) believed that an eclipse foretold the gods punishing the king. In the days leading up to an eclipse, they rounded up captives to substitute for the king, hoping that the real king would escape the cosmic punishment. After the eclipse, they executed the captives as a cautionary protection. Chinese astronomers were able to predict eclipses by 206 AD, but the explanation for eclipses remained mythical for many centuries. In Ancient China, solar and lunar eclipses were regarded as heavenly signs that foretold the future of the Emperor. The ancient Chinese believed that solar eclipses occur when a celestial dragon devou...