Graham Tully

2020 was a terrible year, but it's still far from being the worst in recorded human history. Here are a few bad ones: 1349 was the peak of the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Europe, Eurasia, and North Africa. It is considered the deadliest pandemic in human history. 1520 was when smallpox spread across the Americas, killing an estimated 90% of the Indigenous population. It is estimated that 25 to 55 million people perished. 1918 was when the influenza pandemic killed an estimated 50 million people across the globe. As many as 500 million people were infected. These were all terrible years, but many historians believe that the absolute worst was 536 AD. According to medieval historian, Michael McCormick, "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year." So what exactly happened in 536? Well for starters, a volcano erupted in Iceland, which dimmed the sun for 18 months, causing temperatures to decrease by 1.5 to 2.5 degrees Celsius. This led to the coldest decade (536 to 545) in 2,000 years, leading to crop failures and mass starvations in Europe, Mesopotamia, and China. In 540 there was another volcanic eruption, this time in Ilopango, El Salvador, which killed tens of thousands of people and decreased global temperatures once again. In 541, the Plague of Justinian began to spread throughout the Mediterranean Basin and would kill 35 to 55% of the population. The plague would greatly weaken the Byzantine Empire after devastating its capital, Constantinople. The natural disasters, crop failures, and the plague would go on to decimate Europe's economy, which would not recover until 640, more than a century later. Ice core records show that in 640, there was a spike in atmospheric lead pollution which was the result of an increase in silver mining. Silver is found in lead-rich galena ores. During this time, periods of prosperity almost always coincided with increases in lead emissions. Keep in mind that this is just from recorded history. Imagine all the crazy stuff that happened in prehistory, including population bottlenecks, which reduced the human population to just tens of thousands of people. We could have easily gone extinct on a number of occasions.