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INSIDE THIS ISSUE
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Discover the Delicious Secrets Behind Columbus Pizza
Golden Years Gone Wrong: Retirees’ Biggest Regrets
Meet Tim Dunlap
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A Ring’s Long Journey Home
The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies
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Step Into 536: ‘The Worst Year to Be Alive’
3 REASONS 536 WAS THE WORST YEAR IN HUMAN HISTORY When Mount St. Helens erupted in 1980, it poured so much dust into the sky that the sun over Eastern Washington went dark. Ash drifted overhead, traveling into neighboring Idaho and forcing temperatures down by as much as 15 degrees F. got worse in some areas! In 541, the Plague of Justinian — the first bubonic plague pandemic — appeared in Egypt and spread through Europe, killing roughly one-third of the continent’s population.
For decades, archaeologists and historians have puzzled over the tipping point in 536. “What went wrong,” they wondered, “to make the sun go dark and trigger snow in summer?” It was a head-scratcher until 2018. That year, researchers finally solved the mystery with help from, of all things, a Swiss glacier! The glacial ice was riddled with volcanic glass. Further study revealed enormous volcanic eruptions in 536, 540, and 547 likely caused “The Dark Ages.” It wasn’t just metaphorically dark — it was literally dark thanks to ash blotting out the sun and coating people’s homes, skin, and clothing. Scientists have traced the 540 eruption to Ilopango, a volcano in El Salvador that’s currently inactive, but they’re still hunting for the source of the 536 eruption. As we write this, volcanoes in Iceland and Alaska are the most likely candidates. We’ve already survived a pandemic this century, so for everyone’s sake, let’s hope both regions stay quiet until at least 2100. We all deserve a break!
Locals spent a few weeks scared and shivering under dull skies. They had no way of knowing it, but they were experiencing a tiny fraction of the horror humans felt back in 536 — a time that Harvard University historian Michael McCormick once called “the worst year to be alive.” For decades, the year 536 was a historical mystery. Records showed that it was a terrible time, stricken by the triple threat of:
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Unexplained, unending darkness Unseasonably frigid weather
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Crop failures and famines
Those horrors and the economic and political instability they brought ravaged the globe from Ireland to China. Although 536 was arguably the worst year, things didn’t get better for more than a decade. In fact, they
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