With cheers and matrimony, North Americans celebrate total solar eclipse

FILE PHOTO: People watch the solar eclipse on the lawn of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California, U.S., August 21, 2017. REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni/File Photo

NIAGARA FALLS, New York (Reuters) - Throngs of skywatchers across North America gazed upward at a blackened sun in the midday dusk on Monday, celebrating with cheers, music and matrimony the first total solar eclipse to darken the continent in seven years.

From a Mexican beach resort near where the eclipse made landfall to the banks of the Ohio River to the roaring cascades of Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canadian border crowds catching a glimpse of eclipse "totality" reacted with jaw-dropping expressions of awe and joy.