536 Was a Garbage Year for Mankind (So Give 2018 a Break)
The fall of the Roman Empire may have been a partial result of the decade of famine and plague that began in A.D. 536, the authors of a new study say.
In A.D. 536, Europe had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year.
It started when a mysterious fog swept over the continent, veiling the sun in a blue haze and casting Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia into darkness 24 hours a day, for 18 months. Falling temperatures ushered in the coldest decade of the past 2,000 years, crops failed from Ireland to China, and famine ran rampant. Those who endured the long, cold night faced even harsher times in the years to come; in A.D. 541, an outbreak of bubonic plague known as Justinian's Plague scythed through the Mediterranean, killing up to 100 million people.
... Michael McCormick, a medieval historian and archaeologist, recently told Science magazine that the year 536 was "the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year." But despite all that is known about the devastation that began then, scientists still aren't sure exactly what caused the mystery cloud of doom to descend over Europe in the first place. ...
... In a new study published this week (Nov. 14) in the journal Antiquity, the team analyzed an ancient ice core pulled from the Swiss Alps containing more than 2,000 years' worth of microscopic history lessons. ...— and, according to the new study, reveal that a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland directly preceded the beginning of Europe's darkest days. ...