The Carrington Event
A solar storm let telegraphs run without batteries
On 1 September 1859 astronomer Richard Carrington saw a brilliant flare on the Sun; within a day the strongest geomagnetic storm on record hit Earth. Auroras lit up the tropics, telegraphs sparked, and some lines ran with their batteries disconnected, on current induced by the storm.
Wikipedia (Russian) · Wikipedia (English) · 19th century
Did you know
In 1859 telegraph operators sent messages without batteries; space supplied the power. A solar storm induced current in the wires, and operators between Boston and Portland disconnected their batteries and worked that way for about two hours. Share →
In 1859 the aurora was so bright that gold miners in the Rocky Mountains woke in the night and began making breakfast, thinking it was morning. The lights were seen as far south as Cuba and Hawaii. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1853–1856 Crimean War — 6 years earlier
- 1861 Emancipation of the serfs in Russia — 2 years later
- 1864 End of the Caucasian War and the Circassian expulsion — 5 years later
- 1867 Alaska Purchase — 8 years later
- 1869 Tolstoy's War and Peace — 10 years later
Middle East
- 1839 The Edict of Gülhane opens the Tanzimat — 20 years earlier
- 1839–1842 First Anglo-Afghan War — 20 years earlier
- 1876–1878 The first Ottoman constitution — 17 years later
Africa
- c. 1835–1846 The Great Trek — 24 years earlier
- 1847 Liberia declares independence — 12 years earlier
- 1869 Opening of the Suez Canal — 10 years later
- 1879 Battle of Isandlwana — 20 years later
Asia
- 1850–1864 Taiping Rebellion — 9 years earlier
- 1853–1854 Commodore Perry's Black Ships — 6 years earlier
- 1868 Meiji Restoration — 9 years later
- 1876–1878 Great Famine in India — 17 years later
- 1883 Eruption of Krakatoa — 24 years later
Americas
- 1861–1865 American Civil War — 2 years later
- 1863 Emancipation Proclamation — 4 years later
- 1864–1870 Paraguayan War — 5 years later
- 1876 Invention of the telephone — 17 years later
- 1879 Edison's incandescent lamp — 20 years later
Oceania
- 1851 The Australian gold rushes — 8 years earlier
Alive at the time
- Charles Darwin (aged 50)
- Abraham Lincoln (aged 50)
- Karl Marx (aged 41)
- Queen Victoria (aged 40)
- Fyodor Dostoevsky (aged 38)
- Leo Tolstoy (aged 31)
- Dmitri Mendeleev (aged 25)
- Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (aged 19)
- Thomas Edison (aged 12)
- Vincent van Gogh (aged 6)