The Carrington Event was the largest solar storm in recorded human history. It caused telegraph wires to send signals on their own, even when disconnected from their batteries. Some telegraph operators received electric shocks. However, the link to the solar activity observed by Richard Harrington and others was not made until later that year.

Discuss how scientists continually observe the sun for these solar flares today so we can be more prepared. But given how much more of our life is electronic we would perhaps be more disrupted despite being forewarned.

-Bill