The Song of Urania

The most important application of astronomy in Polynesian societies was oceanic navigation. Polynesian navigators regularly traversed from one small island to another across hundreds of miles of open sea. To accomplish these feats of seafaring, they relied on an intimate knowledge of the night sky.

Aboriginal Australian societies are believed to be among the oldest continuous cultures on the planet. Some of their oral traditions appear to preserve a cultural memory of celestial events from multiple millennia in the past. Aboriginal Australians were also keen observers of the heavens and recognized phenomena both common and rare, from the solstices, to solar eclipses, to auroral sounds, and stellar variability.

In his second attempt, Matteo Ricci was able to gain access to the Forbidden City. Over the next century, the Jesuits came to surprising influence in China through their knowledge of European astronomy, though this journey was not without its perils.

After the fall of the Mongol Yuan Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty drove the few small Nestorian Christian communities in China underground and largely closed China off to foreigners. Only in the 16th century with the arrival of Portuguese traders did contacts with the West begin to be revived. The newly founded Jesuit order organized a mission to China led by Matteo Ricci. After finding his efforts at establishing a presence in the country stymied by the government, Ricci discovered that the key to securing a permanent Jesuit presence in China was his knowledge of Western astronomy.