It did not depend on humanity

There is still the second half of the year, but at this point we can affirm (and without fear of being wrong) that 2025 is not being easy. Commercial wars. War in Ukraine. War in Gaza. War In Iran. For not leaving us, 2025 does not even leave us the comfort to relieve penalties with chocolates or good coffee, both subject to a inflationist spiral. With everything and no matter how bad face that has 2025, something is clear: it will hardly be worse than the 536 AD, the worst year in history.

Never in attractive already a bloody history of humanity has been worse to be alive. And that is something that there is enough consensus.

The worst year in history? There are titles for those who do not lack applicants. And the “worst year of history” is undoubtedly a clear example. If we look back, we find a few candidates of infamous memory: 1347, when the plague epidemic (“Death megra”) began to expand through Europe; 1914, the year in which the World War I; 1918, marked by the beginning of The flu pandemic or 1939, when the world went back to war.

You don’t even have to go back so back in time. In March Of 2022, WHO declared that COVID-19 had become a pandemic that, throughout the following years, would lead to entire countries to the edge of paralysis and would charge millions of lives. According to the UN, only between January of that year and late 2021 died 14.9 million people for causes related to the virus.

What has been the worst then? A few years ago the magazine Science He asked that question To the historian Michael McCormickHarvard’s professor, and his response was as forceful as it is necessary: ​​the worst year to be alive was the 536 of our era. Your answer is interesting for several reasons. The first, because beyond its academic prestige, McCormik is has dedicated to study In detail what happened that infamous year of the seventh century. Second, because is not the only one That believes it.

“It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year,” McCormik insistsat the head of the university initiative for the science of the human past in Harvard (Sohp). The most curious thing is that unlike what happened in 1914 and 1939 (when both world wars exploded) or even during the pandemics of Spanish flu and Covid-19, largely propagated thanks to people, in what happened in 536 AD Humanity played a minor role.

What happened that year? A natural catastrophe that affected sunlight and temperature of much of the world. As Remember em Sciencethat summer the average values ​​in Europe 2.5ºC descendedwhich marked the beginning of the most cold decade in a period of 2,300 years. It is said that China even saw how it snowed in summer. That sudden change resulted in ruined crops, famine and testimonies that even account for the astonishment of the contemporaries.

“The sun seems to have lost its usual light and has a bluish tone. We are marveling not to see the shadows of our bodies at noon and feel that the powerful vigor of its heat has weakened,” I wrote In 538, Roman senator Casodoro. Even more mysterious was the historian Procopio, who that same year He spoke From “a fearsome omen”: “The Sun emitted its light without brightness, just like the moon, all year.”

And what was the cause? That the second third of the sixth century DC was unusually cold is no novelty. The experts had been suspected for a long time, and not only for testimonies such as those of Casodoro or Procopio. In the 90s the Rings studies of trees (Dendrocronology) They already suggested to the experts an unusual drop in temperatures towards the 540s.

The big question is … why? The study of the polar ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica threw a fundamental clue: the phenomenon could be related to massive volcanic eruptions. When a volcano erupts, it throws large amounts of sulfur and bismuth into the atmosphere, among other particles that act as a gigantic veil that reflects sunlight, which in turn derives in less time of clarity and a decrease in temperatures.

In fact, remember in Sciencethe study of glaciers and tree growth rings suggests that a good part of the most “icy” summers recorded in recent centuries have been preceded by eruptions.

But what happened in 536? Years ago, researchers concluded that what happened fifteen centuries may be related to a massive eruption registered between the end of 535 or early 536 in North America and which years later (540) followed another. The wind and meteorology were responsible for making the rest and extending the particles to Europe and Asia.

Over time that explanation has been profiling and In 2018 A quip directed among others by McCormick already spoke of a cataclysmic eruption recorded in Iceland in early 536 to which, throughout the following decade, another two were followed, in 540 547. It is not the only theory. There are those who speak of the effect of the dust of the comets or an unknown underwater eruption, a conclusion to which a group of experts arrived Not long ago After studying the ice of Greenland.

How serious was it? Yes. Let it clear Thousands patternhistorian of the University of Oxford, in An article Posted in The conversation: “Wherever it was, the eruption precipitated a ‘volcanic winter’ of a decade in which China suffered summer snows and the average temperatures in Europe fell 2.5ºC. The crops did not prosper. People went hungry. And they rose in arms against each other.”

A year and a half marked by a mysterious fog that extended in Europe, the Middle East and part of Asia and whose impact soon was aggravated by other factors. In 541 the bubonic plague arrived at the port of Pelusio and marked the beginning of the Justinian plaguedevastating for the Byzantine Empire. Although the balance was not negative for everyone: the Arabic Peninsula saw how rainfall increased and conditions were given to strengthen a new power.

Images | Wikipedia1 and 2

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