Three times in history, the sky seemed to interfere with life on Earth in ways that sounded impossible. In 1859, during one of the strongest geomagnetic storms ever recorded, telegraph operators on the Boston-Portland line disconnected their normal batteries and still found that signals could pass, powered for a short time by currents induced through the wire itself. In 1910, Halley’s Comet returned under worldwide attention after astronomers detected cyanogen in its tail, a real toxic gas that newspapers helped turn into fears of planetary poisoning, comet pills, protective gadgets, and grim countdowns to May 18. And in 1783, a strange dry fog spread across much of Europe, dimming the Sun and staining it red, while the true source lay far away in Iceland, where the Laki fissure eruption released sulfur gases, poisoned pastures, killed livestock, and helped bring famine. Each story begins with witnesses facing a sky they could see, but not yet fully understand.

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YES OR NO: Would you have trusted the battery-free telegraph signals during the 1859 solar storm?