Today marks 50 years since the Great Northeastern Blackout.

Tens of millions of people across the northeastern U.S. and southern Canada were plunged into darkness on Tuesday, November 9, 1965.

It happened at the peak of the evening rush.

The power failure was blamed on problems with the electrical grid.

Here in the city, nearly 850,000 people were stranded in subway cars underground.

Others were trapped in elevators between floors.

Thousands of people also gathered at Grand Central Terminal, where all trains had ground to a halt.

By late Tuesday night only southern Brooklyn had any power back.

The rest of the city returned to normal the next morning. 

The city also dealt with massive blackouts in 1977 and 2003.