Total Solar Eclipse 2017
Monday, 21 Aug 2017
The Great American Eclipse!

This eclipse touches ONLY Unites States soil!

That may not sound like much, but it turns out to be an amazingly rare event!  You see, the paths of totality for most eclipses wind and meander over oceans and islands and continents, with no regard whatsoever for human borders or the geography of the landscape over which they pass.  For an eclipse path to touch only one county and no other, is extremely rare.  (Though admittedly, it will happen in 2012, in Australia.)  Even the great eclipse of 1918, which swept across the U.S. from west to east as this one will, did not fit the bill - it hit the Bahamas as well!  Upcoming eclipses will have the same outcome, touching down in Mexico, Canada, or Central America, as well as the USA. It is an astounding fact that you have to go all the way back to the total solar eclipse of 13 July 1257 (!) in order to find another eclipse which touched only American soil! (And of course, America wasn't a country at that time!) When will the next eclipse like this happen?  One that touches only American soil? Not until 25 January 2316! Make sure you see this one! (...and purists may argue that the 1257 eclipse doesn't count anyway, as it went over land in the Hawaiian Islands. The same thing happened with the otherwise-American eclipses of  4/13/804 and 1/25/529, and the 1/24/502 eclipse just barely nicked Newfoundland - You have to go all the way back to 29 July of the year 436 to find an eclipse that hit only what would become the mainland U.S.!)