Disasters (and near-disasters) in History

On September first, 1859, Richard Hodgson was observing the Sun, as he usually did, when he noticed a white solar flare. At the same time, in Redhill, Sussex, Richard Carrigton observed the same phanenoma.  After first seeing it, he believed his equipment to have malfunctioned.  He wrote of the flare,  “I thereupon noted down the time by the chronometer, and seeing the outburst to be very rapidly on the increase, and being somewhat flurried by the surprise, I hastily ran to call someone to witness the exhibition with me.”  A little over 17 hours later, the plasma of the flare would reach the earth. The Geomagnetic Storm "Aurora Borealis." 1865 Frederic Edwin Church  The plasma from those flares hit the earth between September 2nd and 3rd, causing auroras around the world; yet it followed days of sunspot activity.  On August 29, Queensland, Australia reported Auroras.  Those in September stretched beyond the far north, reaching as far south as the Caribbean and Co

A peasant looks up at the sky in the summer of 1816 to see snow falling on his fields.  That would be  threatening enough on its own, as snow tends not to be great for growing food, but this snow isn't the classic white of a imagined Christmas.  It's red, yellow and brown.  Not to mention that this weather follows heavy rains and other anomalies.  Food will be difficult to come by in the coming year... but why? Two Men by the Sea by Caspar David Frederich Mount Tamboura, former Dutch East Indies On April Tenth, 1815, almost a year before the summer snows, Mount Tamboura erupted, throwing ash 28 miles into the sky.  It was no small explosion, for the Dutch had noticed its beginning five days earlier from a distance of 200 miles.  They saw it with great fear, being an eruption on a scale not witnessed in centuries.  The one eyewitness account, by Rajah of Sangir, who lived in a village twenty-five miles from the summit. He saw the eruption begin, at about 9 pm, noting the