Europeans had waited for this solar eclipse for a long time.  On August 11, 1999, between 11:00 and 14:00 MESZ our Moon gradually covered our Sun, then totally eclipsed it for a 2 min. maximum, and finally retreated.

Our eclipse party took place in Holzkirchen, about 20 miles South of Munich in Bavaria, Germany.  We were at the edge of the totality strip but were able to enjoy 1 min. of totality.  Ten people participated: our hosts Gerda and Kuno Peter Günther (my aunt and uncle), their friends from Düsseldorf, Helga and Carl-Heinz Rademacher, their son Thomas and grandson Julian, both from Berlin, my dad Jörg Veh and sister Alexandra, also from Berlin, my wife Kate and me, Andreas, both from Scottsbluff, Nebraska (USA).
 
 

All photos with a 1250 mm, f/10 Schmidt-Cassegrain, Minolta SLR, ASA 100, partial phases with whole aperture solar filter, totality without.

11:00, notice ../sunspots	11:20, eclipse started on time at 11:17	11:30	11:40
11:50, then clouds took over	12:37, we were so lucky!  Just ten minutes before totality we knew that the hole in the clouds would ..	..  move across Sun and Moon.  Notice the diamond ring in the previous image.	The images are not centered because it had been so cloudy before totality and tracking wasn't perfect.
A beautiful corona was visible, even with the naked eye.  Due to refraction in the clouds there was also a pretty color display of reds and greens just before totality.	At the end of totality, drawn out Bailey's beads show up.  Also visible are the red prominences.	About 12:50.	Another semi hole in the clouds at around 13:30.
About 13:50.	The eclipse is over.  Around 14:30.

 
 

Photos with SLR cameras, 50mm and 35mm (totality photos), ASA 400.  Totality photos by Carl-Heinz Rademacher, people by Kuno Peter Günther.

Just as totality sets in.	Notice the black dot.  That's our Moon covering Sun.  Light comes from the overexposed corona.	Notice the darker sky (this is a ten second exposure on light sensitive film after all).
Carl-Heinz and Helga Rademacher.	Jörg Veh, C-H, Andreas Veh, Helga.	C-H, Andreas, Julian R., Jörg, Thomas R.

 
 

All photos with 400mm Tele on Pentax SLR, ASA 100, with Mylar filter during partial phases (f/13), w/o during totality (f/8). 
Totality photos by Thomas Rademacher.

11:20.	11:30.
12:37.  I apologized to Thomas for not being ..	.. able to have totality in the camera's field of ..	.. view.  But we lucked out again.  It was there.
		About 12:45.
About 13:00.	Around 13:30.	Around 13:50.

I compromised Holzkirchen despite less totality, but for the convenience of the backyard.  With the weather prospects being very dim, i.e. cloudy, we made the right lucky decision.  An acquaintance, Bruno Wagner, had his group of 90 people on the glider aero club airfield in Groebenried, his former high school teacher on the high school grounds in Germering, both East of Munich.  They were lucky, too.  Unfortunately, in Munich itself, totality was covered by clouds.  I hope that my former high school teacher Martin Reble of Berlin lucked out near Stuttgart.

All partial, annular and total Solar Eclipses observable from Western Nebraska until 2030

Date	Time of greatest eclipse	Comments
2000 December 25	9:42 am MST	partial, ~30%
2001 December 14	2:34 pm MST	annular, but only partial in Nebraska, ~10%
2002 June 10	7:21 pm MDT	annular, but only partial in Nebraska, ~30%
2012 May 20	7:34 pm MDT	annular, but only partial in Nebraska, ~70%
2014 October 23	4:35 pm MDT	partial, ~40%
2017 August 21	11:47 am MDT	total, about 2 min. in narrow totality strip from Scottsbluff to ...
2023 October 14	10:32 am MDT	annular, but only partial in Nebraska, ~70%
2024 April 8	12:43 pm MDT	total in St. Louis (among others), but only partial in Nebraska, ~50%
2029 January 14	9:53 am MST	partial, ~60%

Famous eclipses in world history:
Lunar: 413 B.C.- retreat of the Athenians at the siege of Syracuse; A.D. 1453, May 22 - demise of the East Roman empire by the Turks' conquest of Constantinople; A.D. 1504, February 29 - Columbus frightens and appeases the Natives on Jamaica and saves his troops from onslaught and starvation; A.D. 1863, November 25 - Taiping rebellion against the Manchu dynasty; A.D. 1917, July 4 - Lawrence of Arabia and his storm on Aqaba
Solar:  1919, May 29 - "Proof" by Eddington of Einstein Theory of General Relativity due to apparent star shift close to the eclipsed sun
 

Sources: Bradley Schaefer, in Sky & Telescope, Dec. 92, May 94; Christian Gerthsen's "Physik", 16. ed., p.54; Stefan Zweig, "Decisive Moments in History".

Past eclipses in North America:
People are often telling me about their past experiences of eclipse watching.  Here is a comprehensive list of all total and annular eclipses in North America.  Chances are that most people who remember such an event, saw their solar eclipse as a partial one since very few lived in the umbral path.  If you remember your eclipse from a date that is not listed, it means that you either watched it from somewhere else in the world, or you remember a lunar eclipse.
Links are to maps on Fred Espenak's eclipse page, showing all eclipses.  Regions are listed for partial phases, which include umbral path.  Everywhere means continental U.S.
 
 

Date	Comments
1951, March 7	annular, South, East, Central, Mountain
1951, September 1	annular, East
1954, June 30	total, everywhere
1959, October 2	total, East
1963, July 20	total, North, Alaska
1970, March 7	total, East, Central, South
1972, July 10	total, North, Alaska
1979, February 26	total, everywhere
1984, May 30	annular, everywhere
1991, July 11	total, South, Hawaii
1992, January 3	annular, West
1994, May 10	annular, everywhere
1998, February 26	total, South