Well, many historians consider the year 536 AD to have been the worst year to ever be alive, for example the medieval scholar Michael McCormick wrote that 536 “was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.” Here are 5 reasons why it was the worst year to be alive.
A massive volcanic eruption in Iceland:
- This eruption ejected massive amounts of sulphate aerosols into the atmosphere and caused a thick ash cloud to spread throughout Europe and Asia, leading to a volcanic winter as the sulphate aerosols reduced the solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface and cooled the atmosphere for several years
- This volcanic winter was labelled as the most severe and protracted episode of climatic cooling in the Northern Hemisphere in the last 2,000 years
- This resulted in a global temperature drop, leading to crop failures and famine as there was prolonged frost and unseasonable drought and the Gaelic Irish Annals recorded that there was a failure of bread during this year
Bubonic plague:
- The plague of Justinian which broke out during this year in the Byzantine Empire was caused by Yersinia pestis, the same bacterium responsible for the Black Death
- This plague was terrifyingly, indiscriminately contagious as Boccaccio wrote that “the mere touching of the clothes appeared to itself to communicate the malady to the toucher”
- Procopius (a Byzantine historian) recorded that at its peak the plague was killing 10,000 people in Constantinople daily and noted that because there was no room to bury the dea, bodies were left stacked in the open, funeral rites were often left unattended to, and the entire city smelled like the dead
- This was just the beginning of the plague that would continue to ravage humanity for centuries to come
Massive floods and droughts:
Occurred in China, leading to widespread starvation and mass migrations
Political instabilities and warfare:
- Ravaged Middle East and Europe, with the Gothic War between the byzantine empire and the Austro-Gothic Kingdom
- This led to the destruction of many cities
Marked the beginning of the Dark Ages:
- A period of intellectual and cultural decline
- Lasted for centuries
but these sound awful