‘The night the stars fell’ was a celestial show for the ages

On Nov. 13, 1833, a meteor shower known as "the night stars fell" became an almost religious event.

A Missouri Republic Reported: "The air was filled with brilliant and innumerable meteors, shooting lawless throughout the sky, illuminating the earth, and then passing off to the West."

Another Missouri reporter said a slave actually gained his freedom while waiting to be sold because his captors ran away, thinking the reflection of the light on water meant the coming of Judgment Day.

Here is how the event was originally covered in an entry in the Natchez Weekly Courier in Natchez, Mississippi.