WORLD HISTORY AND FACTS

Researchers Identify 536 A.D. as The Absolute Worst Year Ever–world history and facts. A foreboding cloud of black ash blocks out the sun from Europe to Asia. An outbreak of bubonic plague coincides with a piercing cold snap. Crops fail. Starvation, darkness, and squalor abound. All of these conditions were pervasive throughout the northern hemisphere in the year 536 A.D. The year was a tipping point in an era of unprecedented devastation. It was so bad that researchers are now labeling that year the worst time to be alive in the history of humankind. Or as Harvard History professor Michael McCormick told  Science : "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year." Although the origins of the black, ashen cloud were previously a mystery, a new paper published in the journal  Antiquities  indicates that a massive volcanic eruption in Iceland triggered the 18 months of darkness. Two more eruptions in the years 540 and 547 would compound t