Fear and Loathing in the Heavens: The 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet

Talk by Dr. Richard J. Goodrich

In 1705, Edmond Halley liberated humanity from the belief that comets were portents of doom; two centuries later, in 1910, as Halley’s Comet returned to perihelion, newspapers and magazines, religious leaders, misguided theorists, and shameless grifters managed to rekindle that fear. When astronomers announced that the earth would pass through the comet’s tail, opportunists exploited human anxiety—often with fatal consequences.

Join Dr. Richard J. Goodrich, author of Comet Madness: How the 1910 Return of Halley’s Comet (almost) Destroyed Civilization, for an entertaining lecture about the comet’s 1910 return and the reasons that many believed the earth would not survive the encounter.