There must be at least one good book out there about specific solar eclipses in history, and people's reactions to them. I had a bit of a search of Wikipedia and found one article about Historically significant lunar eclipses. No corresponding article for solar eclipses though, which is kind of odd. Oh well.
Something interesting about the stars, you might already know, but we see them as they were in the past. This aligns with what you say about it all being so old. If a star is 10 lightyears away from Earth, for example, we're seeing the light as it shone 10 years ago when we stargaze. Literally we are looking in to the past. 10 lightyears is pretty near compared to the average for stars, as well.
Thanks for stopping by, really appreciate it!