Dusted Files

On January 12, 1888, children left for school across the Dakota Territory in mild weather. By afternoon, the temperature had dropped 40 degrees in thirty minutes. 235 people died — many frozen within sight of shelter they never found. No warning had been issued.

In September 1859, a solar storm gave telegraph operators electric shocks from disconnected equipment. Some kept working — powered by the aurora alone. The same storm today would collapse the global power grid. In 2012, one of equal strength missed Earth by nine days.

On August 27, 1883, Krakatoa exploded. The sound was heard 4,800 kilometres away in Australia. A pressure wave circled the globe seven times. Nearly 36,000 died — almost all by tsunami, not eruption. The island came back in 1927. It killed 437 more people in 2018.