On August 14, 2003, a widespread power outage struck parts of the Northeastern United States

and Canada, affecting an estimated 55 million people. At the time the second worst blackout in
history, the outage was caused by a computer malfunction in Ohio that led to an unprecedented
and widespread power grid failure that contributed to at least 11 fatalities. Ten years after the
lights went out, heres a look back at the 2003 Northeast blackout and other significant power
outages throughout history.