The Night the Stars Fell

One random fact I never knew, which came up in the midst of the PBS American Buffalo documentary, was an event called the Night the Stars Fell.

It was on the night of November 12–13, 1833 — so 190 years ago this week. An average of 72,000 meteors were visible per hour that night, during the recurring Leonid Meteor Shower. That's 20 per second.

It was noted in newspapers across the country and in the diaries of famous people, and was sometimes thought to be a sign of the Second Coming.

This year's annual Leonids are on November 18, with an expected 15 meteors per hour. A much higher numbers are on a 33-year cycle, but it sounds as though the unusually spectacular show of 1833 has never been explained. 

I wonder if the reason was a cloudless night in many places plus a completely dark sky with a new moon (while it had been cloudy and/or bright during the other 33-year intervals of the previous recent centuries), combined with lack of electric lighting that started to become prevalent in the 19th century and the spread of mass media, even by 1833, to record the memory of it.

There are a number of different engravings of the 1833 event, but not many are scanned with very good quality. This is one of the better ones.