New England’s Dark Day

On 19 May 1780 the sky over New England went dark by noon. Candles were lit, birds roosted, and the Connecticut legislature debated adjourning; one member’s reply, that if it were the Day of Judgment he would rather be found doing his duty, is still quoted. It was widely taken as an omen in a country at war. Tree-ring work in the 2000s identified the cause: an enormous forest fire in Ontario, its smoke carried over New England and trapped under low cloud. A genuine mystery, genuinely solved, two centuries later.