Also known as the Carrington Event, the solar storm of 1859 was a powerful geomagnetic storm. An incredible storm of charged particles sent by the Sun slammed into Earth’s atmosphere, overpowered it, and caused havoc on the ground. Telegraph wires, the high-tech stuff of the time, suddenly shorted out in the United States of America and Europe, igniting widespread fires. Colourful aurora, normally visible only in Polar Regions, were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. →