On this date in history, August 28, 1859, the sky began to burn and technology across the globe started to fail in startling ways.

This was the beginning of what is now called the Carrington Event, the most powerful geomagnetic storm ever recorded.

It started with a massive solar flare, observed by an amateur English astronomer named Richard Carrington. This blast of energy from the sun was hurtling directly towards Earth.

The results were seen worldwide. The Northern and Southern Lights, normally confined to the polar regions, became visible across the planet. People saw brilliant auroras as far south as the Caribbean and Mexico.

Many who saw the lights in the sky had never witnessed such a thing and were alarmed, believing it could be a sign of the end times.

But the most dramatic effects happened to our early technology. The planet was so charged with geomagnetic current that telegraph systems went haywire.

Operators reported sparks leaping from their equipment, giving them electrical shocks. Some telegraph papers even caught fire.

In a truly stunning display of the storm's power, some operators found they could disconnect their machines from the batteries and continue sending messages using only the current from the aurora itself.

The main phase of the storm would hit on September 1st and 2nd, but it all began on this day. It served as a major wake-up call for the world's new reliance on electrical technology.

Sources: Multiple historical event indexes, scientific journals