Eclipse!

I confess to a certain level of clueless-ness. Like, I only clued into the whole eclipse thing about 3 weeks ago, early enough to realize I was already committed to an off-to-college drive that weekend, and to order Eclipse Glasses from Amazon.com, only to have them "recalled," or de-validated, or whatever, a week later.

 But still, the prospect of a total eclipse is super cool. Our school schedule has been adapted, with a delayed end-of-school time on Monday to 1) have kids at school for the event, and 2) avoid whatever craziness might happen on the streets from the beginning to the end (from around 1 to 3:30 pm).

 A history teacher asked for some resources on historical responses to eclipses, and I found some interesting resources on the web. Another teacher, the science/STEAM coordinator who got the dubiously awesome job of "Eclipse Coordinator," was particularly excited by the Halley paper. The same Halley who correctly predicted the arrival of a comet that's now named after him. Ever heard of Halley's Comet (the same one that arrived at Mark Twain's birth in 1835, and came again at his earthly exit in 1910)??

 So here are links to interesting historical solar eclipse observations. Be sure to observe safely!

 Report written by Edmund Halley, who both predicted and observed the eclipse in 1715 (and after whom Halley's Comet is named).

Babylonian eclipse records

Comprehensive list of solar eclipses in history, with first-person observer quotes

Also
https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/eclipse-history

eclipses in world folklore

 And of course, Wikipedia has a section on historical eclipses
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_eclipse#Historical_eclipses

Here's hoping for clear weather on Monday!