Solar Eclipse In Reims, France

© 1999 by Linda Moulton Howe

August 11, 1999  Reims, France ­ More than half a million people drove into Reims yesterday and this morning to try to see the last total solar eclipse in Europe until the end of the next century in 2079. Satellite weather reports had focused on northern France as having the best chance of clearer viewing compared to England and other locales in the path of total moon shadow. Reims was once the territory of the long-haired Celtic clan of Gaul. By 817, a Carolingian cathedral was begun and added to over the centuries to become the now famous Notre Dame Cathedrale of Reims. A Reims high school was also where the Treaty ending World War II was signed.