3. 1816 has come to be known as the ‘year without a summer’, as volcanic ash covered skies around the world, bringing misery and starvation
It’s gone down in history as ‘the year without a summer‘. But to millions of people at the time, it appeared like the world was coming to an end. In Europe, as well as in North America, snow fell during June, and temperatures fell below freezing in July. The skies remained almost permanently dark and crops fell, leading to famine and unrest. The reason? In April of 1816, Mount Tambora, a huge volcano in Indonesia, erupted, spewing millions of tons of ash and sulfur into the atmosphere. The effects were felt the world over.
As if the unseasonable weather and the near-constant darkness wasn’t enough, as global temperatures dropped by as much as 3 degrees, a number of diseases started to break out. What’s more, people panicked as religious preachers forecast the end of the world. Countless numbers decided to pack up and move in the hope of escaping the impending apocalypse – of course, at least 12,000 Indonesians had no chance of moving since they were killed outright by the volcano’s eruption. At the same time, however, many people stayed put and either prayed or found inspiration – famously, Mary Shelley was moved to write her famous Gothic tale, Frankenstein, thanks to the year with no summer.