Here you will find those observed by Joshua in 1131 BC, Christopher Columbus in AD 1506 and the Shawnee's prophet Tenskwatawa in 1806. In his solar science section, he discusses how useful eclipses have been in sorting out the diamonds from the dross in theoretical work. Much of this work occurred during the heyday of eclipse watching, between the 1840s and the 1930s. For example, the 1919 eclipse was used to show that the solar gravitational field bent a beam of starlight in just the way that Einstein had predicted. The corona was revealed as the solar atmosphere, as opposed to a lunar one.
Steel describes how eclipses are useful for the detailed work of science, too.
We have nailed the size of the Sun, and can use eclipses to chart the way in which the length of the terrestrial day is increasing. Now all we need to do is fix the weather. With Cornwall and Devon having a three in five chance of clear skies in early August, rain is the enemy to fear.