We know - lots of you might be
thinking, "Wait a minute - I'm pretty sure I saw an eclipse, and
it wasn't that long ago!"
You may very well have seen a partial or an annular
eclipse, BUT...
In the words of Jim Rosenstock, "If you only think
you saw a total eclipse, I promise you - you didn't!"
There are many kinds of eclipses - total solar, partial solar,
annular, and lunar, to name the most common few. Partial
eclipses are pretty common, and you very well may have been a part
of one of those. Lunar eclipses happen at night, and they can be
seen by half the world at the same time! Annular eclipses are much
rarer, but you need to have special filters to see them, so many
people don't even know they're going on! But a total eclipse
-- these are extremely rare, extremely beautiful, and the bare-eye
view of totality is absolutely unmistakable to anyone in the thin
path! They are the kings of eclipses, with nothing else able to
stand in comparison to!
These are the only total solar eclipses that have touched U.S.
soil in the last hundred years, and the general locations you
would've had to have been in to see totality:
6/8/1918 |
A nationwide band of totality stretching from the SW corner of Washington, through Denver, the Tulsa/OKC area, Jackson MS, the panhandle of FL, and Orlando. |
9/10/1923 |
Only visible from the far SW beaches and a couple of the offshore islands in California. |
1/24/1925 |
Northern MN,
WI, and MI, and about half of NY (NYC was split in two
by the path!), plus pieces of PA, NJ, and CT. Read the New York Times articles about the 1925 eclipse, courtesy of Michael Zeiler! |
8/31/1932 |
Maine, NH, VT, and the far eastern coast of MA. |
2/4/1943 |
Alaska only |
7/9/1945 |
Our "Victory Eclipse" was visible in ID and MT only, in the early morning. |
6/30/1954 |
From northern NE, through the western tip of Michigan's UP. Minneapolis was in the path. Early morning. |
10/2/1959 |
Massachusetts only, just at sunrise. |
7/20/1963 |
Alaska got a good show, and Maine was the only other state to see totality. |
3/7/1970 |
From central Florida, the path hugged the eastern coast of the US up through Virgina's Eastern Shore. This may have been the eclipse that Carly Simon was referring to in her 1972 song "You're so vain". ("You flew your Lear jet up to Nova Scotia - to see the total eclipse of the sun.") |
7/10/1972 |
Northern Alaska only. This might also have been the eclipse that Carly Simon was referring to in her 1972 song "You're so vain". (see above) They were both visible from Nova Scotia! (The song came out in December of 72, so it's unlikely that it was this one, but hey - you never know! |
2/26/1979 |
WA, OR, ID, MT, and ND were the only states to see totality, in the mid-morning. It was cold and dreary, and unfortunately many people did not see the eclipse due to rain. |
7/22/1990 |
This one only touched four small islands in the Aleutians, in the late afternoon: Atka, Amlia, Seguam, and Amukta. From reports we've read, the day was rainy, and unfortunately no one saw the eclipse from US soil. |
7/11/1991 |
Hawaii only, and lots of people were clouded out. (Many people went to Mexico to see this one, and were not disappointed there!) |
That's it for total eclipses seen from the
U.S.! Anything else you may have seen was
(There was a partial eclipse on Christmas Day 2000, and annular eclipses on May 30, 1984; January 4, 1992; and May 10, 1994 - but these were not totals!!)
The United States' 26-year dearth of Total Solar Eclipses is about to end! This rarity and beauty is why we are making all this fuss about the 2017 event, and it is why we want everyone to stop whatever they're doing on that day (Aug 21st), get to the path, and be absolutely awe-struck and amazed for up to two-and-a-half minutes of totality. "Only two and a half minutes? No way! I'm not even gonna waste my time for that!" |