During his fourth and final voyage, Christopher Columbus persuaded the Jamaicans to continue supplying him and his crew and thus save them from starvation by successfully scaring them by predicting a total lunar eclipse for March 1, 1504. Some researchers claim , that Columbus used the ephemeris to the German astronomer Regiomontanus, but Columbus himself attributed the prediction to Almanac by Abraham Zacuto.
Zacuto was a Castilian astronomer, astrologer, mathematician, rabbi and historian who served as astronomer royal to King John II of Portugal.
Columbus was able to use the astronomical tables of Abraham Zacuto, compiled for the period 1475-1506. The navigator noticed that, according to them, there would be a total lunar eclipse on March 1, 1504.
Columbus requested a meeting on February 29 with the local tribal chief and told him that God was angry with the islanders’ treatment of Columbus and his crew. Columbus said that God would give a clear sign of his displeasure by making the rising full moon appear “burnt with wrath.”
The lunar eclipse and red moon appeared on schedule and the local population was impressed and frightened. Columbus’s son, Ferdinand, wrote that the people “with loud wailing and lamentation ran from all directions to the ships laden with provisions, begging the admiral to intercede in every way with God for them, that he would not send his wrath upon them…”
Columbus went into his cabin, ostensibly to pray, and recorded the time of the eclipse with his hourglass. Shortly before the eclipse itself ended in 48 minutes, he told the frightened local people that they would be forgiven. As the Moon began to reappear from the Earth’s shadow, the great Italian told them that God had forgiven.
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