11 August
1999 · everyday
The last total solar eclipse of the century crossed Britain
Shortly after eleven in the morning, the shadow of the Moon swept in off the Atlantic and made landfall in Cornwall. For a little over two minutes the sky went dark over Falmouth, Truro and the Lizard, and hundreds of thousands of people who had driven down the A30 stood in fields and car parks with cardboard glasses on.
Much of the rest of the country got cloud and a sort of gloomy dusk instead. It remains the last total eclipse visible from mainland Britain for a very long time — which is why almost everyone who saw it can still tell you exactly where they were standing.
“Where were you standing for the 1999 eclipse — and could you actually see it?”