"The Day the Sky Burned - The solar storm that melted the telegraphs" investigates the Carrington Event of 1859, the most powerful geomagnetic storm on record. A massive solar flare hit Earth, causing auroras so bright that miners in the Rockies woke up at 1 AM thinking it was morning. Birds began to sing, and people could read newspapers by the light of the sky.Science historian George Spark details the chaos in the telegraph offices (the "internet" of the time). The wires overloaded with induced current. Telegraph machines threw sparks, papers caught fire, and operators received electric...