Mystery of Europe's 'Dark Age'


   We won't load a lot of historical references on you, we'll
   just agree they exist - hence the phrase "Dark Ages"

   Carl Sagan makes a revealing point - maybe inintentionally -
   in his great (penultimate) book "Cosmos"

   He points out that on July 4, in 1054 a great supernova burst
   upon our skies. It was so energetic that for two or three months
   people on Earth could read at night by its light.

   It was reported by the Chinese, by the Anasazi (ancestors of the
   Hopi of New Mexico) and across the Muslim world. So we know that 
   scientists and scholars of three-quarters of the world were in 
   good shape for observational ability.

   But this highly visible and significant event is not reported
   by _any_ European source. Why ?
   

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see Carl Sagan entry

www.perceptions.couk.com/subindex.html#sagan

and Dark Age refs

www.perceptions.couk.com/subindex.html#dark
   
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              FURTHER REFERENCES

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file-ID www.perceptions.couk.com/darkage.txt