(Chapman, p.15)
    Compared to present-day representation of comets as astrological balls of ice, historically comets have been portenders of pestilence, famine, and the death of notables in European countries.  According to Grecian writers Egyptians were the first to suggest that spectacular comets were long flowing tresses of women’s hair.  Most written references of cometary influences start during the Greco-Roman era.
    “ A comet is a particularly frightful body, and not easily atoned, it is usually a very fearful star and announces no small effusion of blood” (Pliny, Historia Naturalis, 77 A.D.)  In 1528 a comet graced the skies of Europe.  Crowds aggregated in the streets for mass prayers and redemption.  According to many, it wasn’t until the Pope of the time beseeched God that the comet was exorcised from the sky.
    In 1531,  Peter Apian noticed tails of all comets pointed away from the sun.  It was a fact that Chinese astronomers had recorded in writing in 800 A.D.  Tycho Brahe became interested in comets due to their seemingly short-term nature.  He carefully observed the comet of 1577 .  Not only did he confirmed that comets are true astronomical bodies, but that they orbit the Sun external to Venus.  After his death, Brahe’s assistant Kepler studied his predecessor’s notes.  During his own studies of comets in 1607 and 1618, he noticed that all comets traversed the Solar System in a rectilinear orbit, or in other words, they moved in a strait line.  The other conclusion was that comets were extremely numerous in space.
  (
        Tycho Brahe, courtesy of    http://www.hven.com/AIM1.html                       Johanne Kepler, courtesy of http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Kepler.html                                 Whipple, p. 17)
    Galileo on the other hand argued with a Jesuit by the name of Grassi, who relied on Brahe’s theories.  He stated that Grassi’s theories were false because there was no proof.  Even though Grassi’s arguments were more physically sound, Galileo won the debates with his rhetorical supiority.
    The comet of 1680 produced new cometary thoughts.  Comet orbits were agreed upon.  Newton developed a technique to determine the parabolic orbit of a comet through three observations.  Later Halley used Newton’s method to discover the first periodic comet which still bears his name.  Frederick Bessel studied the sunward jets in the nineteenth century and the first meteor shower was identified with a parent comet in 1867.
    Presently, while the presence of comets are being answered, they are still beautiful and mysterious.

 

                                A Few of the Famous Events that Comets were Precursor and After Events To

                                              43 B.C.     : Julius Caesar was transported to the Heavens by a comet
 
                                              451 A.D.  : Attila’s death was pronounced
   
                                              455 A.D.  : Emperor Valentinian’s death
 
                                               841 A.D.  : Charlemagne’s death

                                               1000 A.D.: Prodegy of doom, mass hysteria
 
                                               1066 A.D.: Precursor to the Norman conquest
 
                                               1456 A.D.: Turks vs. Delgrade

                                               1499 A.D.: Precursor to Cortez’s arrival in Mexico