  On 1 September 1859, the British astronomer Richard Carrington observed an
anomalous behavior on the Sun. Approximately 17 hours later, magnetic effects
of global scales were observed at Earth: aurora borealis and australis in
low-latitude regions, and telegraphic equipment failures in Europe and North
America. Nowadays, 160 years later, we know that solar-terrestrial connections
control the magnetic activity in the geospace and on the ground, and their
effects are subject of a discipline named {\it space weather}. The main goal of
this modest work is to briefly present to the reader Carrington's observations
and the discoveries that led to the connection between solar and terrestrial
magnetic phenomena. Implications of this discovery to space weather with
emphasis on the protection of technological systems in the geospace and on the
ground, and a brief discussion on the future of the discipline, are briefly
presented as well.
