On Jan. 24, 1925, a total solar eclipse was visible above Vose Field in Westerly, Rhode Island. In this photograph, a group of people gather in zero-degree weather to watch the eclipse with the corona — the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere — visible during totality. (Image credit: Photo by James L. Callahan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) In June 1927 a group of nurses gathered to watch a solar eclipse that occurred over the U.K. (Image credit: Photo by Fox Photos/Getty Images) May 28, 1900, North Carolina, U.S. This photograph shows Samuel Pierpont Langley's Bolometre or coelostat with an equatorial photographic room installed in the camp set up by the Smithsonian Institute to study the eclipse. (Image credit: Boyer/Roger Viollet via Getty Images) On April 8, 1921, a partial solar eclipse was visible over France. Here three women in Paris, France watch the eclipse unfold. (Image credit: Photo by adoc-photos/Corbis via Getty Images) On Sept. 10, 1923 a solar eclipse swept across southwestern corner of California, crossing Point Concepcion, the Channel Islands, and San Diego. (Image credit: © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)
If you ever have the chance to view an eclipse, you’d do well to take a tip from the 1963 fifth grade class at the Emerson School in Maywood, Illinois. Wielding cardboard boxes and knives that today would surely get a kid suspended, the students demonstrated for LIFE’s readers how to safely look at an eclipse.