Is there a way to catch the back button event in javascript?

Use the hashchange event:

window.addEventListener("hashchange", function(e) {
  // ...
})

If you need to support older browsers, check out the hashChange Event section in Modernizr's HTML5 Cross Browser Polyfills wiki page.

I have created a solution which may be of use to some people. Simply include the code on your page, and you can write your own function that will be called when the back button is clicked.

I have tested in IE, FF, Chrome, and Safari, and are all working. The solution I have works based on iframes without the need for constant polling, in IE and FF, however, due to limitations in other browsers, the location hash is used in Safari.