Why 536 was 'the worst year to be alive'

[WillParkinson]

Why 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’

By Ann GibbonsNov. 15, 2018 , 2:00 PM

Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst to be alive, and he's got an answer: "536." Not 1349, when the Black Death wiped out half of Europe. Not 1918, when the flu killed 50 million to 100 million people, mostly young adults. But 536. In Europe, "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year," says McCormick, a historian and archaeologist who chairs the Harvard University Initiative for the Science of the Human Past.

A mysterious fog plunged Europe, the Middle East, and parts of Asia into darkness, day and night—for 18 months. "For the sun gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year," wrote Byzantine historian Procopius. Temperatures in the summer of 536 fell 1.5°C to 2.5°C, initiating the coldest decade in the past 2300 years. Snow fell that summer in China; crops failed; people starved. The Irish chronicles record "a failure of bread from the years 536–539." Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says.

Historians have long known that the middle of the sixth century was a dark hour in what used to be called the Dark Ages, but the source of the mysterious clouds has long been a puzzle. Now, an ultraprecise analysis of ice from a Swiss glacier by a team led by McCormick and glaciologist Paul Mayewski at the Climate Change Institute of The University of Maine (UM) in Orono has fingered a culprit. At a workshop at Harvard this week, the team reported that a cataclysmic volcanic eruption in Iceland spewed ash across the Northern Hemisphere early in 536. Two other massive eruptions followed, in 540 and 547. The repeated blows, followed by plague, plunged Europe into economic stagnation that lasted until 640, when another signal in the ice—a spike in airborne lead—marks a resurgence of silver mining, as the team reports in Antiquity this week.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/11/why-536-was-worst-year-be-alive

[dameatball]

1. That was interesting. Thanks for posting.

[underpants]

2. I'll bet the yearbook photos were really sad.

[WillParkinson]

3. HAHAHAHAHA...

You so bad.

[colsohlibgal]

4. Fascinating

That had to be harrowing for those around then. It seems like a long, long time ago but in the whole human history not all that long ago. A lot of us here now likely are distantly related to many of those who went through that.

[pansypoo53219]

5. how cool would a super volcano cool us now tho? no plagues either.

[eppur_se_muova]

6. 1816 was all too similar --

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer

Events like these have been much studied in connection with the "Nuclear Winter" hypothesis -- as have the climatic impacts of massive forest fires.