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From an electrical perspective, it doesn't matter. However, a lead-acid battery that is charging or discharging rapidly will give off hydrogen, which is highly explosive. Since you generally make the ground connection last, there's a good chance that you'll get a spark, which is enough to ignite the hydrogen. So while it's unlikely that you'll have ...

Your car thinks it is being stolen - jump starting a car looks a lot like hot-wiring a car to the computer. You need to do something that tells your car "it's OK, I own you". You can do this right after hooking up the cables, but before starting the engine, to minimize the annoyance to your neighbors. If you have a remote door key, lock and unlock the ...

Chris makes a very good point regarding the hydrogen given off by the battery. There's also another reason, especially on older cars. Ground straps to the engine on most cars are notorious for corroding, so by hooking up the negative terminal to the engine you'll increase your chance of getting the maximum current flow when you're trying to crank the engine. ...

Sounds to me like your starter motor is on the way out, as you are getting enough power, as a bump start is working, and sometimes you are able to start normally. This isn't that uncommon - they do take a lot of stress and load, and the internal friction can end up being too high for them to cope with. A temporary fix I have used in the past is to whack ...

You can get transient spikes from the other car while it's trying to start. Any battery or alternator issues that affect power quality will be transmitted to your car. The good news is that large 12v batteries make excellent buffers against power issues that might otherwise cause damage. However, it is still possible to suffer damage to your car from ...

Editing my answer It had happened to me a couple of time and common symptoms that I found are Loose Battery Connection Somehow the battery terminals got loose, tighten it and it will solve the problem. It happened to me before. Jump Start In my latest case, even tighting the termainsl didn't work. I had to get a jump start. Even with jump start the ...

I can't think of any reason why you would damage the electronics in your car, unless you touched one of your jump leads somewhere you shouldn't and short something delicate or you connect the leads back to front. Connecting them back to front shouldn't damage electronics, as your car should have protection against this sort of thing, but it is the key thing ...

As the comments described, you probably plugged in the block heater. Perhaps the heater warmed up the entire engine compartment over time, including the battery. Batteries deliver less current when cold, so it might have been just under the current required to turn the engine. Guess you'll find out if it starts again tomorrow!