American writer Isaac Asimov described this battle as the earliest historical event whose date is known with precision to the day, and called the prediction "the birth of science".

[9] Herodotus writes that in the sixth year of the war, the Lydians and the Medes were engaged in an indecisive battle when suddenly day turned into night, leading to both parties halting the fighting and negotiating a peace agreement.

[10] Afterwards, on the refusal of Alyattes to give up his suppliants when Cyaxares sent to demand them of him, war broke out between the Lydians and the Medes, and continued for five years, with various success.

As, however, the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night.

[7] Cicero (1st century BC) mentions that Thales was the first man to successfully predict a solar eclipse during the reign of Astyages, the last king of the Median empire.

[12] Pliny the Elder (1st century AD) mentions as well that Thales had predicted a solar eclipse during the reign of Alyattes of Lydia.

At the time of Thales' purported prediction it was not yet known that eclipses were caused by the Moon coming between the Earth and the Sun, a fact that would not be discovered until over a century later by either Anaxagoras or Empedocles.