I'm a professor (since September 2019) at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
In 648 BCE, the Greek poet Archilochus wrote that,"nothing can be surprising any more or impossible or miraculous, now that Zeus, father of the Olympians has made night out of noonday, hiding the light of the gleaming Sun."
Astroarcheology — also called archeoastronomy — uses astronomical records to help date key moments or events in history. Of all astronomical phenomena, total solar eclipses are among the best measuring sticks because they are only visible at a certain time and place. One of the oldest recorded eclipses is on a clay tablet from the city of Ugarit, in modern-day Syria. The city was overthrown shortly after the eclipse, making the tablet one of the last things written down by someone from that city. The inscription on the tablet reads:"… day of the new moon in ḫiyaru the Sun went down, its gate-keeper was ."
The change in Earth's day also affects dating historical eclipses — if the difference in the length of day is not corrected for, calculations may be inaccurate by thousands of kilometers. As such, when using eclipses to date historical events a correction must be applied; uncertainties in the correction can make ancient eclipse identifications harder to pin down in the absence of additional information to help narrow down the possibilities.