May 29, 2022
On this date in 1919, American astronomer Arthur Eddington observed a total solar eclipse which helped confirm Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Eddington sailed to PrÍncipe Island, West Africa in order to view the eclipse, where he saw starlight being bent by the Sun.
On the left is one of Eddington’s photographs of the 1919 total solar eclipse which was presented in his 1920 paper. On the right Einstein and Eddington sit at the University of Cambridge Observatory in 1930. Image credit left: Dyson, Eddington, and Davidson (1920)/public domain, right: Royal Astronomical Society/Science Photo Library