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. [MUSIC PLAYING] While serving as
a military advisor to Belisaurius, 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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, who suffered through their own horrible
sounding food depletion they called "Bread Failure." [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 thing in the sky that the
people of the 6th century were starting to get
used to having around. Based on a 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. [PEOPLE SCREAMING] [MUSIC PLAYING] 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,
Belisaurius, 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. [MAN SCREAMING] [MUSIC PLAYING] 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 ponder 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
thrusted 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 cool down 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. [MUSIC PLAYING] 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. [MUSIC PLAYING]
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Dude at least you don't have your father always remembering you how he saw the fall of Rome and everything you're experiencing now is nothing compared to that