The term "worst year ever" gets tossed around a lot these days,
mostly on the internet, and for reasons like,
I was disappointed in the latest Star Wars movie.
But scientists and historians have actually
argued that no year in the long history of this planet
was worse than the year 536.
While, sure, there have been plenty
of worthy contenders for the worst year
ever over the course of history, no single year
has had more of a measurably bad impact for the decades
that followed.
Today, we're going to explain why the year 536 was the worst
year to be alive.
But before we get started, be sure to subscribe
to the Weird History Channel.
Oh, and leave a comment too and let
us know what piece of history you
would like us to explain next.
OK, now let's settle this once and for all--
year 536, worst year ever. While serving as a military advisor
to Belisarius, one of the Byzantine Empire's
most distinguished generals, Byzantine historian Procopius
noticed some trouble was brewing in the air while traveling
with his boss in Sicily in the year 536.
He wrote of a sun that gave forth light without brightness,
during like the moon, during this whole year.
And it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse
for the beams it shed were not clear nor such as it
is accustomed to shed.
Translated, it was all dark outside, like, all the time.
He, of course, wasn't the only one
to notice the sun appeared to be in a mood during 536.
Michael the Syrian, a Byzantine scribe,
would later write of this period, "The sun became dark
and its darkness lasted for 18 months.
Each day it shone for about four hours,
and still, this light was only a feeble shadow.
Everyone declared that the sun would never
recover its full light.
The fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes."
This wishy-washy sun situation cast
a non-metaphorical dark cloud over the globe
that darkened the sky for at least a full year in 536.
Researchers later discovered evidence
of a massive volcanic eruption whose ash was likely
a major contributor to the Seattle-like weather, minus all
the rain, spreading ash and destruction on a global scale.
Not to mention, it made the grapes sour and the wine bad.
So that's an easy strike for the year 536. Basic biology teaches us that plants
need the sun to aid in their growth and survival.
So not having direct sunlight for the duration
of at least a year did a real number on the crop output
around the world and sparked a widespread famine
around the globe.
And it's not just that the plants wanted
to catch their rays, it was just too darn chilly
for crops to grow.
With the sun cloaked in an endless cloud,
the temperature of the Earth dropped between 1.6 and 2.5
degrees Celsius, or 34.88 to 36.5 degrees
Fahrenheit for all the Americans thinking
that doesn't sound so bad.
But it also cooled temperatures for decades to come.
Crop scarcities were reported far and wide around this time
period, including Ireland, which suffered
through their own horrible sounding food depletion
they called "Bread Failure."
A dusty veil covering the sun wasn't the only bad thing
in the air for these poor people just trying
to live their lives in 536.
There was also a plague or two waiting in the wings
to strike on these vitamin D-deprived immune systems.
Nobody was immune to this infestation.
It swept through the lower classes
all the way to the Imperial Palace.
"Symptoms," as it was lovingly described,
began with a sore that formed on the palm of the hand
and progressed until the afflicted one could not
take a step.
The leg swelled.
Then the buboes burst and pus came out.
Obviously, if this same plague were to infect the world today,
there would probably be a TV show
called Doctor Buboes, Pus Buster,
and with it a new contender for the worst year to be alive.
With the plague beginning to make the rounds
in Constantinople, the city began to stink,
what with the piles of dead sick bodies
just sort of being tossed around into the sea,
only to resurface later.
There wasn't a lot of burial planning going around
back then.
Bring out your dead!
There was more of a "wing it" vibe around the Justinian
Plague.
Emperor Justinian ordered the bodies
to be removed from the city.
I'm not dead.
Oh, he says he's not dead.
Yes, he is.
I'm not!
But all that did was expose more people to the disease,
as healthy people were responsible for moving
deceased, sickly bodies out of the cities.
Things weren't all bad for Emperor Justinian
though as the plague that took all of these lives
and made the city a smelly nightmare that would later be named
the "Plague of Justinian."
So that was probably nice for him.
Less so, for the estimated 50 million people
that died from it, however. Around 536, the climate in China started its journey
into madness, doing perfectly normal things
like raining dust you could scoop into your hands.
Not only should it not rain dust,
it certainly shouldn't be measurable by the scoopful.
The Nan Shi, a sixth-century chronicle,
reported a yellow ash-like substance falling from the sky.
They named their freak weather hui, or dust,
and said it was yellow in color.
Whether this was volcanic ash or just
some random unexplained climate reaction is not known.
However, this was just the beginning
of China's climate disruption.
The chronicles of the southern dynasties
reported on a rare summer-winter weather event with frost
in the mid-summer and snow in August.
Like a Southern California girl in Chicago in January,
the crops were not here for this cold snap.
Summer crops were destroyed.
And the city of [? Xinzhou, ?] along with others,
were thrown into a deadly famine that lasted for two years
and resulted in the deaths of around 70% to 80%
of the population. Researchers discovered evidence deep
in the ice sheets of Iceland and Greenland
that indicated a major volcanic event occurred around 536.
Volcanic eruptions in Iceland in 540 and 547
thrust people into the literal Dark Ages,
with ash lining the skies and blocking out the shiny, hot sun the thing in the sky that the people of the 6th century
we're starting to get used to having around.
Based on tropical volcanic ash later discovered,
some scholars have suggested a volcano in El Salvador
went blasting off around the year 535 or 536.
Still, others pointed to a volcanic eruption
in North America as a contributor
to the dark skies around the world.
When combined with the two Icelandic volcano eruptions,
it kicked off it was adorably called the "Late Antique Little
Ice "Age.
This cute little ice age cooled off
the planet for at least a decade and resulted
in the death of crops and, subsequently, people.
Both directly through starvation and indirectly,
a malnourished population was more
susceptible to diseases, of which there were plenty
running around.
Well, there's one thing that certainly couldn't
claim it had a bad year--
exploding volcanoes.
By the time the 6th century rolled around,
the Roman had migrated east to Constantinople.
And, under the guiding hand of Emperor Justinian,
the Romans sought to get back to the glory days of the empire,
much like a high school graduate who still hangs around campus
and wears their letterman jacket.
I mean, it is pretty cool.
Though some of Justinian's generals
saw success in this cool goal--
most notable, Belisarius, who fought
against several different armies,
including Goths, Vandals, and others--
Justinian himself couldn't mirror
the success due to constant uprisings
and imperial instability.
Those pesky uprisings, always getting in the way of success.
To add sickness to war defeats, the Byzantine Empire
would never fully recover from the disease and famine sparked
by the events of 536.
The Byzantine Empire lost between 35% to 55%
of their population in the year 541.
Once the bubonic plague moved in,
it did what the plague did best--
kill depressingly high percentages
of entire populations.
Historians believe the plague could have been transported
by plague-infested rats hitching a ride on military trains
during this attempt to bring the Roman Empire back
to its peak, which clearly backfired. The horribleness of 536 didn't discriminate.
The Moche civilization of Peru wouldn't count 536
as their banner year either.
The Moche civilization-- a once-dominant force in the region--
were known to be avid fishermen and developers
of an advanced irrigation system that allowed a variety of crops
to grow.
Their agricultural talents were the backbone of their economy.
But the weather conditions in the 6th century
caused their pocketbooks to take a deep hit.
It was around this time that an unusually strong El Niño
weather system caused waters to warm,
which decimated the fish supply.
The freak weather system also caused heavy flooding,
which ruined their irrigation systems
and devastated their ability to grow enough food
to feed their people. People, probably tired of listening to Twitter users
claim X and X was the worst year ever,
a group of scholars set out to set the record straight
once and for all.
Harvard historian Michael McCormick
and a group of scholars decided to science their way out
of the age-old question, what was the worst year to be alive?
Initially, however, this was not the ultimate goal of McCormick
and his group of 12 interdisciplinary scholars.
The group came together to study metal usage, coinage,
and changes to the 7th century monetary systems.
Somewhere in this thrilling subject matter,
one probably began to wonder if they were living in the worst
year to be alive.
Their findings included an analysis of volcanic fragments
from an Icelandic volcano in ice core samples
from Swiss glaciers that, yes, dated back to 536, confirming
the volcanic event that thrust a good portion
of the northern hemisphere into unprecedented darkness,
setting off a global catastrophe.
Yeah, but in 1998, both Armageddon and Deep Impact
were released.
And people had to choose between which two asteroid-based action
movies they liked best.
That's a tough year. The planet left behind plenty of evidence of climate trauma
that resulted in a chain of climate events
that spiraled over into real human suffering.
Remember, we only get one Earth, everyone.
Please recycle.
Dendrochronologists, people who study tree rings to determine
a tree's age since that's a science and not a wild guess,
noticed some disturbing patterns emerging
when examining Icelandic trees.
The rings indicated a period when the tree's growth had
slowed, suggesting a significant cooldown
had occurred around the middle of the sixth century.
This, combined with the newly unearthed ice core
evidence discovered in 2018, helped date the time
of the catastrophic event that ruined Earth, for a little bit,
to the year 536.
In researching for the worst year to be alive,
things weren't always so bleak.
In fact, the research started by our friends
at Harvard ended on a positive note.
While the events of 536 were the spark
for some truly literal dark days in our planet's history,
the researchers were also able to find the moments things
really started to turn around.
When researching coinage, they noticed the reappearance
of lead in the ice core samples, indicating
that people were producing silver again for money.
Ah, capitalism, the life force of us all.
Experts argued the prevalence of silver
meant more coins were being produced, which was
a sign of a thriving economy.
The lesson being, as bad as it may seem,
it will almost always get better, almost always.
So what do you think?
Would you like to go into a time machine
and play the ultimate game of Survivor?
Let us know in the comments below.
And, while you're at it, check out some of these other videos
from our Weird History.
0 Comments