A scene from the Bayeux Tapestry showing men staring at Halley's Comet — Source.

From the Nuremberg Chronicles, 1493 — Source.

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, Folio 52 (erschrocklicher Comet, 1300) — Source

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, Folio 52 (Comet mit einem grosen Schwantz, 1401) — Source.

Augsburger Wunderzeichenbuch, Folio ? (Comet, 1506) — Source..

The figure of a Fearful Comet, from Les oeuvres d'Ambroise Paré, 1579 — Source.

Comet of 1577, depicted by Georgium Jacobum von Datschitz, 1577 — Source.

Astronomie & Komet by Erastus, Dudith, Squarcialupi and Grynaeus, 1580 — Source.

Illustration from a 1587 treatise on comets and meteors, created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France) and known as the Kometenbuch. More in a special post here — Source: Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, CC-BY SA 4.0

Illustration from a 1587 treatise on comets and meteors, created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France) and known as the Kometenbuch. More in a special post here — Source: Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, CC-BY SA 4.0

Illustration from a 1587 treatise on comets and meteors, created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France) and known as the Kometenbuch. More in a special post here — Source: Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, CC-BY SA 4.0

Illustration from a 1587 treatise on comets and meteors, created anonymously in Flanders (now northern France) and known as the Kometenbuch. More in a special post here — Source: Universitätsbibliothek Kassel, CC-BY SA 4.0

Detail of a Comet, Frankfurt am Main, 1665 - Source.

Engraving from Stanislaus Lubienietzki's Theatrum Cometicum (The Theatre of Comets) published in 1668 — Source.

Joseph Boll's depiction of the 1704 comet over Catalonia, 1704 — Source.

Astronomy: a meteor shower in the night sky. Mezzotint, after 1783 — Source.

The comet, by Thomas Cornell (floruit 1792), published 1789 — Source.

Etching showing the 'view of the organisation of the heavenly bodies' according to the pioneering astronomer William Herchel — published for The Gallery of Nature and Art: or, A Tour Through Creation and Science by the Rev. Edward Polehampton and John M. Good, 1813 — Source.

Image from J.J. Grandville's Un Autre Monde (1844) — Source.

Engraving from 1860 depicting some of the most famous comets over the centuries: Halley's Comet (1835), Donatis Comet (1858), and further comets of 1680, 1741, and 1811 — Source.

Image from A Popular Treatise on Comets (1861) by James C. Watson — Source.

Image from A Popular Treatise on Comets (1861) by James C. Watson — Source.

Image from A Popular Treatise on Comets (1861) by James C. Watson — Source.

Contemporary drawing of the meteorite fall at Knyahinya (Ukraine) on June 9, 1866, by Wilhelm Ritter von Haidinger — Source.

Image of a combined meteor shower orbit, from Popular Science Monthly Volume 1, 1872 — Source

Image from Astronomy (1875) by J. Rambosson — Source.

Image from Astronomy (1875) by J. Rambosson — Source.

Image from Astronomy (1875) by J. Rambosson — Source.

Image from Astronomy (1875) by J. Rambosson — Source.

Image from Flowers of the Sky (1879) by Richard A. Proctor — Source.

The great comet of 1881 (Comet C/1881 K1). Observed on the night of June 25-26 at 1h. 30m. A.M. Plate XI from The Trouvelot Astronomical Drawings (1881) — Source.

Leonid Meteor Storm, as seen over North America on the night of November 12-13, 1833, from E. Weiß's Bilderatlas der Sternenwelt (1888) — Source.

Morehouse's Comet, Photographed at Yerkes Observatory, 1908 — Source.

Portents of death and destruction. Gouache, ca. 1910 (?) — Source.