Information on the historical supernovae Michael Richmond March 19, 1997 There have been a handful of supernovae in our own Milky Way galaxy which were observed and recorded by human civilizations in the past two millenia. This information is taken from Clark and Stephenson, "The Historical Supernovae." It may be hard to find, but it's a good source of information. Below, I refer to "Type Ia" and "Type II" supernovae. These are two different types of explosions. Type Ia are slightly brigh ...