was likely Hoku-leʻa, which means "star of gladness", or "clear star". In the Marquesas Islands, Arcturus was probably called Tau-tou and was the star that ruled the month approximating January. The Māori and Moriori called it Tautoru, a variant of the Marquesan name and a name shared with Orion's Belt. In Inuit astronomy, Arcturus is called the Old Man (Uttuqalualuk in Inuit languages) and The First Ones (Sivulliik in Inuit languages). The Miꞌkmaq of eastern Canada saw Arcturus as Kookoogwéss, the owl. Early-20th-century Armenian scientist Nazaret Daghavarian theorized that the star commonly referred to in Armenian folklore as Gutani astgh (Armenian: Գութանի աստղ; lit. star of the plow) was in fact Arcturus, as the constellation of Boötes was called "Ezogh" (Armenian: Եզող; lit. the person who is plowing) by Armenians. In popular culture In Ancient Rome, the star's celestial activity was supposed to portend tempestuous weather, and a personification of the star acts as narrator of the prologue to Plautus' comedy Rudens (circa 211 BC). The Karandavyuha sutra, compiled at the end of the 4th century or beginning of the 5th century, names one of Avalokiteśvara's meditative absorptions as "The face of Arcturus". One of the possible etymologies offered for the name "Arthur" assumes that it is derived from "Arcturus" and that the late 5th to early 6th-century figure on whom the myth of King Arthur is based was originally named for the star. In the Middle Ages, Arcturus was considered a Behenian fixed star and attributed to the stone Jasper and the plantain herb. Cornelius Agrippa listed its kabbalistic sign under the alternate name Alchameth. Arcturus's light was employed in the mechanism used to open the 1933 Chicago World's Fair. The star was chosen as it was thought that light from Arcturus had started its journey at about the time of the previous Chicago World's Fair in 1893 (at 36.7 light-years away, the light actually started in 1896). At the height of the American Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln observed Arcturus through a 9.6-inch refractor telescope when he visited the Naval Observatory in Washington, DC, in August, 1863. References Further reading </ref> External links SolStation.com entry K-type giants Suspected variables Hypothetical planetary systems Arcturus moving group Boötes Bootis, Alpha BD+19 2777 Bootis, 16 0541 124897 069673 5340 Stars named from the Ancient Greek language TIC objects