6. In 1601, a volcanic eruption in Peru led to millions of people starving in Russia and many more enduring a summer with no sunshine.
The Bengal Famine may be better remembered, but the famine that devastated Russia from 1601 onwards was every bit as deadly. While the exact number of fatalities will never be known, it’s believed as many as two million people starved to death, many of them during the first year of the disaster. This meant around one in three Russians died in the space of just two or three years. Moreover, the famine led to serious social and political disruption, including the downfall of Boris Gudunov, who had declared himself Tsar of all Russians.
And it wasn’t just Russians who went hungry in 1601. In 2008, scientists revealed that the effects of the eruption of a volcano in Peru in 1600 were felt the world over. Sunlight levels fell globally, hitting harvests in countries including France, Switzerland, Japan and China; even if Russia was the worst hit as temperatures plummeted. The records show that 127,000 people were buried in a mass grave in Moscow between 1601 and 1602. There were also stories of people killing their pets in order to eat them and wear their furs, plus the inevitable tales of people becoming cannibals in order to stay alive.