A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court by Mark Twain Chapter 2 Page 6

“I shall never see my friends again — never, never again. They will not be born for more than thirteen hundred years yet.”

I seemed to believe the boy, I didn’t know why. Something in me seemed to believe him — my consciousness, as you may say; but my reason didn’t. My reason straightway began to clamor; that was natural. I didn’t know how to go about satisfying it, because I knew that the testimony of men wouldn’t serve — my reason would say they were lunatics, and throw out their evidence.

But all of a sudden I stumbled on the very thing, just by luck. I knew that the only total eclipse of the sun in the first half of the sixth century occurred on the 21st of June, A.D. 528, O.S., and began at 3 minutes after 12 noon.