Just 160 years ago this month, after a period of unusually quiet sunspot activity (much as we are going through now), the largest solar flare of the industrial age lashed out at the Earth. It interfered with the still fairly small number of electrical systems and communications worldwide. A modern replay would be much more damaging...
I've read that some telegraph operators found they were able to operate the transceiver even when the power is disconnected, due to the induced current during the storm. Just imagine what would happen if the transceiver is made of solid-state semiconductor...
