Mankind has long feared lunar and solar eclipses. Often these events lead to fear and religious madness.

But it has to be said that a few wise man figured it all out and recognized that these were natural and predictable events (from Wikipedia):

Ancient Greek astronomers noticed that during lunar eclipses the edge of the shadow was always circular; they thus concluded that the Earth was spherical. In 499, Indian mathematician Aryabhata gave accurate calculations for both the solar eclipse and lunar eclipse. In 1504, while stranded on Jamaica, Christopher Columbus “predicted” a lunar eclipse (actually, he knew from celestial tables that he had brought with him that a lunar eclipse was to occur on February 29 of that year), thereby intimidating the island’s natives into continuing to provision him and his men and thus saving them from death by starvation.

Today we simply enjoy the spectacle! This weeks solar eclipse images: BBC and of course the corresponding Flickr Group