Shortly after 4 pm ET on Aug. 14, 2003, more than 50 million North Americans find themselves without power in the most widespread blackout in the history of electrical civilization. As seen in this raw TV footage of the day, Toronto — along with number of cities including New York, Cleveland and Ottawa — comes to standstill as traffic lights, office buildings, the subway and the airport are shut down. The blackout extends over 24,000 square kilometers, from Chicago all the way over to and down the Atlantic coast, including most of Ontario.

• The 2003 blackout was short lived and power was restored in most regions the next day.
• The blackout affected 10 million Canadians and 40 million Americans.
• In Canada, the power out effected most of Ontario including Toronto, Ottawa, Kingston, Sudbury, Kitchener, London and Windsor.

• Power outages were also reported in Cleveland, Toledo, New York City, Buffalo, Albany, Long Island, Westchester County, Rockland County, Detroit, New Jersey, Vermont and Connecticut.
• Quebec was not effected because its power supply is not part of the Lake Erie transmission loop, which is a system of lines that circles Lake Erie.

• The massive power outage was blamed on Ohio-based FirstEnergy Corporation. A FirstEnergy generating plant in a suburb of Cleveland had power lines go out of service when they came in contact with some "overgrown trees." FirstEnergy was accused of failing to react until it was too late due to a system glitch that prevented alarms from showing up on their control system. That, coupled with inadequate staff, led to the domino effect that resulted in the shutdown of more than 100 power plants in Ontario and the northeastern U.S.

• Some famous power outages in Canada include:
— The Northeast Blackout of 1965, which affected Ontario along with Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, and New Jersey. Some 25 million people and 207,000 square kilometers were left without electricity for up to 12 hours. For more on this topic visit: The 'Great Northeastern Blackout' of 1965.

— In Quebec, six million people were left without power for nine or more hours on March 13, 1989, when a geomagnetic storm caused a Hydro-Quebec power failure.
— In January 1998, ice storms destroyed transmission towers and caused massive prolonged power outages. Quebec was the hardest hit. For more on this topic visit: The Ice Storm of 1998.

Medium: Television
Program: The National
Broadcast Date: Aug. 14, 2003
Host: Peter Mansbridge
Duration: 8:51