On March 19, 1886, over Oshkosh, Wis., the sun went out.

“The day was light, though cloudy, when suddenly darkness commenced settling down, and in five minutes it was as dark as midnight,” reported the Monthly Weather Review. “General consternation prevailed; people on the streets rushed to and fro; teams dashed along, and women and children ran in cellars; all business operations ceased until lights could be lighted. Not a breath of air was stirring on the surface of the earth. The darkness lasted from eight to ten minutes, when it passed off, seemingly from west to east, and brightness followed. … It seemed to be a wave of total darkness passing along without wind.”

No one knows the cause, but essentially the same thing had happened a century earlier.