Solar flares & Magnetic Storms
From August 28, 1859 until September 2, 1859 numerous sunspots and solar flares were observed on the sun. Just before noon on September 1, British astronomer Richard Carrington observed the largest flare, which caused a massive coronal mass ejection to travel directly toward Earth, a journey of 18 hours. Remarkable because such a journey normally takes three to four days. On September 1st–2nd, 1859 the largest recorded geomagnetic storm occurred, causing the failure of all telegraph systems over Europe and North America.
Dr Michio Kaku explains how the earths entire power grid could be wiped out in 2012.