There were still, in 1968, a few people who were afraid of the nuclear power plant. This means, simply, that operators in nuclear power plants need not be eminent physicists or mathematicians. They had some nuclear power, introduced a century or so ago by traders from Marduk, one of the really civilized planets.
This interactive Google map shows the path of the Total Solar Eclipse of 2017 Aug 21. The northern and southern path limits are blue and the central line is red. You MUST be somewhere within the central path (between the blue lines) to see the total phase of the eclipse. The eclipse is longest on the central line (red).
The type of solar eclipse event depends on the distance of the Moon from the Earth during the event. A total solar eclipse occurs when the Earth intersects the umbra portion of the Moon's shadow. When the umbra does not reach the surface of the Earth, the Sun is only partially occulted, resulting in an annular eclipse.