15. From Amos 8:9. This passage is almost certainly a reference to a total solar eclipse that passed over the Middle East on June 15, 763 B.C.E. It is known as the Nineveh solar eclipse because a scribe in the Assyrian city of that name recorded the event on a clay tablet, emphasizing its importance by drawing a line across the tablet.
To add drama to this event, a bright comet appeared in the sky just two months after the eclipse. And a major earthquake was felt throughout the eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East just three years earlier, the shaking strong enough to damage King Solomon's Temple in Jerusalem and produce a tsunami in the Sea of Galilee. (The earthquake is also mentioned in Amos 1:1 and so this event is often referred to as the Amos Earthquake.)