Good video but once again a misleading title. 95% of it is about the modern-day investigation of what caused it. There’s barely anything about what actually happened, how societies dealt with the famines, what wars occurred etc.
Because little is known about those aspects. As per the video there are very few actual accounts of climatic changes during the time frame. Its possible that most societies had little or no writing in the 500s. Most writing and education was reserved for the elite ie religious institutions and royalty.
Really felt cheated by that title. Looking at the effects of the eruption and the demographic consequences could have made for a much more interesting video.
One morning, when I was kid, I decided to go out and play in the garden, to my surprise, the grass was gray, my dad's red car looked black, and the whole outside was covered with ashes to the point I have this memory in black and white. It was scary for sure. The popocatepetl volcano had a burp lol. México in the 90's.
1816AD is called "The year without a summer" because of a volcanic eruption, Mount Tambora. It wasn't as devastating as the 536AD event but it was pretty noticeable.
@@anntoureilles6389 That's a fascinating story. She and Lord Byron and some others has a competition to see who could write the best horror story while they were forced to stay indoors during the bad weather during the summer of 1816.
@@joycebrewer4150 I'm sorry for being a bit sceptic, but if your grandmother could remember that year, she'd need to to be born around 1806. It's seems highly impropable that you, in the year 2024 had a grandmother that was born 1806, unless you're basically ancient yourself. Even if you are now 100 years old, and managed to type this youtube comment, that would mean you were born to your parents in the yar 1924. If your mother was, say, 50 years old at the time (so really unusually late for a woman to be able to give birth, especially in 1924), that would mean, your mother was born in the year 1924-50=1874. So your grandmother, who remembers the year 1816, would have had to be .... how old to give birth your your mother? 1. I'm bad at math or 2. I'm really bad at spotting a joke and just wooshed really hard or 3. You're lying for no reason or 4. You're a bot making stuff up.
I found this very interesting BUT terribly disappointing that you did not say how we survived or how it changed history. Please don't click bait anymore
When it ends, there are some of the little tiles to click for the next video that may cover it. Like the plague after wards. Or google aftermath of Krakatoa or The Year the Sun Disappeared. The aftermath and How it changed history is fascinating.
Human survival is insignificant in the scheme of things. More interesting is what caused it. This is a remarkable and most interesting detective story.
Funny that this is right around the time St Kevin is reputed to have lived in a cave for 7 years at Glendalough Ireland. He is reputed to have lived from 498 to 618, some guestimation and mythmaking poetic license with those dates for sure but either way places his prime years around the time of this event. Could he and his wider family (early irish Saints were usually from wealthy clans and those would have previously been on the fertile plains of dublin/meath/kildare etc) have moved to the lakeside site in wicklow to ride out the event hunting & fishing? Could their success in doing so have led to the subsequent growth of the community around them? People would have said he'd made the right choice by moving his clan there and thus attributed it to God being on his side. One two skip a few and you have a monastic City spring up.
@@HeirOfNothingInParticular: The full phrase is "one, two, skip a few, ninety-nine, one-thousand", but the full thing is only really useful as a reference.
Reading about Krakatoa in 1883, is mind blowing that it was on the site of the original blast of 537. The most recent volcano recorded is the Tongan Volcano in 2020. Once you read the effects from a massive volcanic explosion, the information becomes more relatable. The lack of sunlight, acid rain, flooding and the populations around the world thinking it would be judgement day! The hard part as noted is finding any recorded mention of the event. Can it happen again, oh yes it certainly can! Can't remember if he determined a month? Tree ring mapping, brilliant, wonder if they mapped the big Redwoods of the east coast of America? Ice cores are really becoming totally important as well, saw a special on the investigation of the poles swapping and also the Gulf Stream stopping! The really scary thing is, not understanding this rock we live on, and what makes it tick.
It’s not if it can happen again, it’s when. One big volcanic eruption it’s all it takes for our planet to go haywire until the planet “resets” as the ash dissipates from the atmosphere. It’s pollution at a rate we can’t really imagine.
@@blastypowpow The USA maybe a young civilization, but the Redwoods are ancient in comparison. It would be interesting to see if the computer program has been applied to them as well and if there was any significance?
@mesakeratu2139 heard in New Zealand too. I was camping with some mates and we heard these low booms. 30 minutes later one of us, a geologist , got the update
I saw this one several years ago and I think an updated documentary is due. New technologies have come into play making studies of vulcanism more precise.
There is a moment of confirmation bias evident in the last researchers report but I guess to get published, you have to cut a few corners. Not unknown in the scientific world. This is the kind of puff piece appropriate to RU-vid. It is entertaining enough to watch.
They did such a good job keeping the science visually relevant and the information clear and logical throughout the documentary, thoroughly enjoyable and well done!
@@tammysims8716 They officially did what they were doing anyway..Concerning RU-vid the content of the channel owner censor more than the RU-vid Bot..This comment applies to the host of the channel being viewed at this moment..
good but old...copyright date 1999. I think I saw this when it was released on tv. Definitely needs an updated documentary, what was right here, what was incorrect or too amorphous for good data at the time but newer tech can get more results?
This is interesting but seems like there should be more documentary evidence from this period. Justinian became Emperor of the Romans in AD 527. That would put the disaster close to the beginning of his reign. Yet he was one of the most successful of the Roman/Byzantine Emperors, ruling until 565 if I remember right. I don't recall that Procopius, his court historian, even mentions any disastrous weather events. On the other hand, it's maybe more than coincidence that the "Nika Rebellion" hit Constantinople around that time (532).
Comet hit Britain and Brazil (562 AD) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Kg_BvT6AI18.html ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-fZQKpsy2OgM.html Regards
This video has been published before, and it always generates a lot of comments. There has been recent research regarding this: Radiocarbon and geologic evidence reveal Ilopango volcano as source of the colossal ‘mystery’ eruption of 539/40 CE by Robert A. Dull.
I'm always happy when a person shares a complicated thing that they figure out and helps humanity to understand life and history in retrospect. May God bless his soul and keep him. May people learn from his.life. I remember counting tree rings as a child. His knowledge must have been shown to the adults in my life
@@jeanettereno4045……have you watched UK tv series’, ‘Catastrophe’? It’s on YT. Mike Baillie is interviewed on it, by UK archaeologist, David Keys. He’s (D K) also written a book by the same name, which is my next hook to read………
@@elizabethroberts6215 I have not! I will look at it. I watch a guy who gets into the Tarteria aspects. I at first wasn't paying attention but I started looking at all the old maps. I also watched a couple things about the movement of our language and "word usage" and also on our writing. I watch information on giants and large structures. Each one seams to have a focus of one thing or another. E.T. or God. I just know love is better than anything else. And I TRUTH. 🙂 I will look up "Catastrophe".. thank you! 😊
I didn't know Mike by his name- just by his shows. I have loved looking at the historical information on how many have lived in the past..I have even learned much about composting toilets! It makes me happy to know and see others from all over wanting to gain knowledge. My journey has taken me to wish to know basic living skills, food and medical skills, how to use charcoal to clean water, make soap, and amend garden soil. All are amazing! Knowledge is powerful. The corporate machine doesn't want "us" to have any knowledge.
Two corrections. The word _asteroid_ does not mean a very large meteor, it refers to the same object as long as it remains in space. Once it enters the atmosphere of a planet, striking the surface, it then *becomes* a _meteor._ Second, the individual who said that a large meteor striking the ocean would produce a tsunami miles high is mistaken. The same amount of kinetic force released by an earthquake underwater is at least one order of magnitude greater than that of an object striking the water's surface. I learned this years ago using meteor impact modeling software at the Liverpool University in London. Even a rather large meteor of 4-5 miles would only create a water wall up to about 120 feet. I enjoyed the video and found that it captured the dismay and dread that humanity must have felt not knowing such conditions were only temporary.
@@DarrelLaBossiereWords are man made and they have meaning. History is the recorded events of the past. Prehistory is the time before writing was introduced
So many natural disasters, so many cruel wars, so many destructive epidemics since humanity existed. And yet there are still people who prophesy Armageddon.
Imagine, the world gradually going dark with the ash, then cold due to lack of food, then starving and still not knowing it was a volcano on the otherside of the world.
I'm sure for every person that thought it was the end and didn't have a spirit of persistence, it was actually the end for them... so they weren't completely wrong😂😂😂
EXACTLY just like the balls found over Sodom and Gomorrah, just like the rock that NASA just recently ran over on Mars, that they commented "this shouldn't be here", bing bing bing they shouldn't be on Mars or doing any of the other ungodly things they've been doing on this planet and outside of it...
I remember hearing the Tongan Volcano eruption from Auckland over 2000km away. Roughly 1.5 hours after the event. Outside in loud environment and still very clear. Won't forget it
Tongan eruption was 2022, though NZ in 2023 didnt have a summer, it poured down the entire season causing catastrophic floods in Auckland and Bay of Plenty in January, it was cold and windy all year. I suppose Krakatoa was on a much larger scale than that, would have been severely miserable.
@@DistinctiveBlend Gotcha!! After I posted that, I suspected that was the case and probably should’ve deleted it but didn’t actually follow that thought all the way through to the end and delete it!! Lol
He said they went without agricultural foods, that they hunted and fished, (and very likely cannibalised - my add in due to other references). They survived. And here we are.
My impression has been that this event may have been caused by the creation of the strait between Java and Sumatra with the explosion of a 'grandfather' Krakatoa in the 530's AD. The most recent explosion in the late 19th century also brought on a dimming of the earth for a period yet not as bad as 1400 years ago.
That was the leading hypothesis by a team about 10 years ago. The recording of distant loud explosions in China was pretty compelling. Edit: didn't realize this was the tram I was talking about.
@@paulbriggs3072tambora was our last VeI 7. I've looked through much of the temp recordings on the east coast in 1816. Amazingly, savanna Georgia, which is typically in the low to mid 90's on July the 4th, stated in the 40's all day and had a high temp of 48°F. Since 1900, Savanah hasn't even had a low temp below 60 in July. 1816 the high was 12 degrees below whats the modern all time July low.
@@MVeans I understand that a similar Earth Event will take place when Yellowstone explodes! A super volcano is a climate altering period, of no sunshine, famine, and crippling transportation. There are 4 such volcanoes, throughout the world. One being close to Pompeii!
It all depends on the sustainability of life. A hundred people could probably survive the lack of food, by hunting down animals over time, but a few billion..
Yeah, even considering there was only a 200-300 million population around 500AD, mass starvation/death would seem likely. Game would have died off quickly as well, so probably wouldn't be much game to hunt. Costal communities might fare better with fish being the primary food source as oceans were probably less impacted by the eruption.
I saw this 1999 documentary a few years ago and was very glad to be able to watch it again today. It seems a lot has been lost in a very short period (25 years!) in terms of quality of production and respect for viewers. This admirable film has no need for cute (and often misleading) computer graphics, "funny" asides, and dumbed-down, sensationalist content. Congratulations to Channel 4 and WNET, and thanks to those who give a new generation of viewers a chance to experience real science this way.
Although "The Worst Year In History" may be hyperbole to entice people to watch this video, I certainly would not want to have existed during that time.
I was 3 years old. My mom took a picture of me in front of the snowbank on the side of the driveway after my dad plowed and shoveled a little path out of the house. There was at least 6 feet of snow.
@@elizabethroberts6215 : 100% agreed. Probably it wouldn't just be 'the end of humanity', but the catastrophic end of most anything alive in this planet🌏 as far as I can conceive...
The Nat Geo has an entire month's magazine dedicated to Yellowstone & what happens, when it blows. Vast areas of the US are annihilated. The world, in general, dies slowly. Horrific, sad to say. The billionaires are creating a subsurface community, with artificial suns, throughout the globe. EVERY SINGLE COUNTRY is in on it. You know won't get to go unless you're perfect ~ of mind & body and also, perfect for, experimenting ON. ALL Of our taxpayer dollars aren't going to the exploration of MARS, but for building the underground world. There's so much more. You have no idea 😢
@@hernandovillamarinbuenaven7476: Yellowstone is big, but not _that_ big, and in fact it's had major eruptions in the distant past that didn't achieve that level of destruction in North America, let alone across the entire world.
oh geez, it's the most annoying misconception about Yellowstone😑😑😑The most likely event to happen is a hydrothermal eruption or a lava flow. All the recent eruptions were boring lava flows though. Go visit the United States Geological Survey to learn more about the Yellowstone volcano.
……have just finished book, ‘Worst Year Ever: 536AD’, by Reece KIMBLE. The ‘domino effect’ of a huge volcanic eruption, latest knowledge being in Iceland, is monumental. An excellent read. So too, is David KEYS book, ‘Catastrophe’………
1250 - 1100 B.C. Was also considered the dryest years of the bronce age. And way later the justilian plaque was likely the result of a vulcanic eruption in India.
This was well-done with the story and the presentation of research but evidence was presented at a conference in 2004 excluding Krakatoa from being the cause of 6th century weather, based on analysis of layers from drilling on the ocean floor surrounding Krakatoa. If there was an eruption at that time, it was not explosive enough to affect the entire world like it did in 1883. Doesn't mean it couldn't have been a volcano, but not Krakatoa. The splitting of Java from the Book of Kings was originally dated as 416AD but scientists have no support for the tale (geologic evidence points more to the land bridge between the islands being flooded at the end of the last Ice Age). I hope they keep searching for the evidence.
This is an interesting theory: it wasn't the collapse of the Roman Empire that caused the Dark Ages, but a natural disaster near the end of that empire that truely left the world in darkness for another 500 years.
I'm not surprised that they did NOT find any charcoal in that layer. Remember the book of kings...The day Java split up (in current Java and Sumatra). I suppose nothing would have been left above water in that region. Which makes charcoal deposit impossible ....as told in this video...they could ony search in the small parts above water. About ancient krakatoa...the Charcoals foubd in the layer above (1216) could be the layer created when blowing up ancient krakatoa. Because that drawing seems to be a volcano in water (island vulcano). Also because that book of kings. In 535 (435) AD the volcano must have been situated on land, not in the water. Also to create the straight of Sunda....in one blow (book of kings)....I cannot imagine how much czarbomba explosions big that has been. No wonder that the could hear this in Chnia as an exceptional loud boom...on 5000 km distance. Even the "small" eruption (only a vei6) in 1883 was heard in Perth Australia....also a 5000 km away. Someone mentipned the tamboras, year without summer...this , as this story says...was in a lot of places a decade without a (real) summer. If this would happen today even our modern civilization would not be able to feed the current number of people living. And the worldwide food storage will not last for >10 years Which makes sure that de population would diminish... Only question remaining...Was this a super eruption (VEI 8) as mount toba 75000 years ago? Could they calculate if the amount of vulcanic deposits reacht that vei 8 size?
I moved to the upper Midwest, Minneapolis, from the West Coast in 1990. It used to rain almost every night in the summer. Not so much anymore, but we're out of a 4year drought thank goodness.
Me too. I majored in chemistry and took a few geology courses. I discovered too late that this subject was my greatest intellectual love. Well, I was never the sturdy kind of person who can hike up mountains carrying monitors, and hike back down carrying rock samples.
39:26 Could it be around 1875-76 by any chance? There is a recorded history 2000 km northwest in Tamilnadu, India which is known as _thaathu varuda panjam தாது வருடப் பஞ்சம்,_ the *famine of thaathu year* of Tamil calendar. Fyi.. thaathu is 10th year in the 60 year Tamil calendar cycle. There are _several references in Tamil literature to this famine which lasted upto 3 years that killed several thousand people_ in Southern India. As one would know Tamilnadu heavily dependent on yearly north east monsoon cyclones from bay of Bengal for its crop cultivation. And this volcanic eruption could've wrecked havoc on the UAC disrupting monsoon cyclones. My 2 cents.
They now think the inner core of the Earth may oscillate with a roughly 70-year periodicity - switching directions every 35 years or so. There is so much happening beneath the surface we barely understand.
wait till you start researching why Mary Shelly wrote Frankenstein: A Modern Prometheus. if you want to take the Volcano Blocks Out Sky subject to its Nth degree. Study the Sea People and the Bronze Age Collapse.
The title is misleading. I did not notice the title just the year. I knew from Randle Carlson, that this was a period without summer. So it was what I wanted to know. I think it should have been called "the dark ages , the years with almost no Sun."
The shaky camera work and spooky music? Seriously - give that crap a rest. Or do you think the history and science is not compelling on its own? Please drop the melodramatic frippery and overproduction.
Krakatoa - according to my recherches - has definitely been excluded from the possible candidates for this event and I'm somewhat surprised to hear from this hypothesis. On the other hand this is mentioned on Wikipedia: David Keys suggested the volcano Krakatoa by shifting a cataclysm in AD 416 recorded in Javanese Book of Kings to AD 535.[15] Drilling projects in Sunda Strait ruled out any possibility that an eruption took place during this time period.[29]' -> see: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
Long range sound travel.... Study Krakatoa 1883. HEARD as far away as Ceylon as the sound of distant cannon, and in Manilla the same. And that one DID effect global weather for months but not years. In London fires were reported at Sunset for months because the sunsets were so red.
@clintoncyrilvoss4287 Tell me, do you think chemical warfare is worse now than it was in 1917? Do you think humanity is worse now than at ANY other point in the last 10,000 years?
@@notsorare My thought is something like 2-3 years of cold weather and crop failures could have destabilized the region for many years. (Just two topics that interest me that I had never considered might be correlated.)
This is really relevant to the current threat in Italy right now with the Campi Flegrei caldera and Mt Vesuvius. On the Pulse with Silky is talking about this here on youtube.
With all the concerns about global warming how arrogant are we to believe that we can adjust the planets weather by legislation when a natural event can turn the climate around almost instantly as has happened many times in the past. This leads me to believe that much of climate activism is more of a political movement than anything else.
What a weird arguement. The fact that nature "rarely" causes huge changes doesn't mean it will happen when we try to fix what we know we have done to the climate. Politics is part of everything, doesn't matter. Only the real science matters to guide us to the best decisions.
There is a book on this. There was a very severe hurricane event along the North Sea coast which occurred in the early 1200s. It was in a book on European Medieval history from several years ago. The event sounded like this video story.
The biggest worst year in history is the 1620 BCE explosion of Thera/Santorini island, creating a Mediterranean tsunami that wiped out the majority of all western and central Mediterranean shorelines (saving Syria-Haran, Canaan, and Egypt. The refugess from Europe (the western Hebrews of ABRAHAM'S BLOODLINES - Ur of the Chaldees - Europe of the Celts), and the esatern Hebrews (Hyksos, Catal Huyuk), and the shoreline people (Sea Peoples), all moved out of the area into the Mideast, the Nile delta region, and others migrated further east into the Tigris-Euphrates valley (and even into India). The explosion overcast the skies, creating drought, crop failures, starvation, disease, and deaths.
@@brosephbroman7564I personally still use the BC/AD convention because it’s what I grew up with and I’m a Christian and I kinda like the Christ-centereness of those Latin phrases, but OP is also correct; BCE/CE (Before the Common Era and Common Era) are a modern way of delineating the turn.
Yellowstone? It's a place where the ground is always pipping the ground. There is a lake that is being moved as of someone is lifting up a plastic sheet. Yes the history of that time of 536 AD is an eye opener. This is why I started dehydrating foods and storing flour. (Freeze it for a few days, so bread weevils will die.)
You're right they don't live that long. But wood is surprisingly hardy and has been used in construction for thousands of years. Also in the right ecological conditions it can be almost perfectly preserved even longer. By finding and cataloging many thousands of samples from many sources. You can reliably construct such a timeline. Scientists aren't relying on one tree or even a dozen but hundreds or thousands collected over a wide area. Looked at not by one scientist or group but many that serve to further verify the findings.
@@michaelharris8598 "By finding and cataloging many thousands of samples from many sources. You can reliably construct such a timeline." This is one sentence, not two.
oldest trees ever dated don't go back beyond 5,000-5,500 years ago of course, there are several examples that haven't been dated that the so called "experts" like to assume longer time periods, but you know what they say about assumptions... In short, there is no scientific evidence via Dendrochronology prior to 3500-3000BC coincidentally, which is about the same time period of the great/biblical flood...
We recently had an eruption of Taal Volcano in the Philippines in the last 4 years or so. Surely this is related to this discussion, as we are relatively close to the equator. At least, as close as I have ever been 😅 We had a layer of volcanic dust on everything 1cm thick around our house and street. We are 35-40 km away from the volcano.
@@KevinMahalko That will only happen in places that are already arid/semi-arid. Places where that's already a part of the cycle. The Sahara was once lush with rivers and forests. People are governed by fear. The folly of humans is clear, but putting all our eggs in the global government basket seems like hell.
Thank you AH. Not sure it's the right niche but if anyone's very much into the Justinianeaen period I strongly recommend Schwerpunkt's relative playlist. It deals with such deep changes. Keep up with the amazing work
The Taupo Super Volcano eruption of 235 AD (1,700 years ago) in New Zealand was the largest volcanic eruption on Earth in the last 5000 years (VEI-7 eruption). Much bigger than any eruption around 536 AD. How did the 536 AD event darken the world more than the Taupo event just 300 years earlier? The Taupo eruption spewed out far more material and must have had a much bigger impact on the World. Possibly because the 536 AD event only really affected the Northern Hemisphere, not the whole World, and the Taupo event was in the Southern Hemisphere.
Clearly, you weren't paying attention during the documentary. As was pointed out by the narrator, the eruption would have to have been along a band around the equator in order for the effects to have been global. This is due to something called the Coriolis effect which caused by the rotation of the Earth. Without getting into too many boring details, this would have led to the ash dust and, most importantly, sulfuric gases to be spread through the stratosphere towards either pole. Although the 235 ad eruption of taupo was larger, its location resulted in the effects being mostly local. Also, my guess is that, since at that time your shitty little island was uninhabited, there would be no written records to report on its effects.
@@nikolaribic7956 I was applauding your reply until the "shitty little island" remark..... Dude, have you ever watched "Lord of t Rings"? ..... And the dudes on RU-vid from New Zealand who roll anything they got down a mountain to see what happens.... Man there is coolness in Zealand of the New.... But yeah, only Equator Volcanoes effect both Hemispheres...
Also Chinese writings of a fleet of junks catching fire south of out southern shitty little island from a meteor strike and Māori story of 1/2 the island on fire .
