{"id":61423,"date":"2022-01-11T18:43:20","date_gmt":"2022-01-11T23:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61423"},"modified":"2022-01-11T18:43:20","modified_gmt":"2022-01-11T23:43:20","slug":"year-of-darkness-the-climate-cataclysm-of-536-youve-never-heard-of","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61423","title":{"rendered":"Year of Darkness: The Climate Cataclysm of 536 You\u2019ve Never Heard Of"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"536<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
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Year of Darkness: The Climate Cataclysm of 536 You\u2019ve Never Heard Of<\/a><\/h3>\n
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During 536 the world was beset by a long winter. Dubbed \u201cthe year of darkness\u201d in the\u00a0New Scientist\u00a0<\/em><\/a>, temperatures plummeted and the sun was dimmed by a vast fog which blocked its rays from hitting the earth during 24 hours a day over the course of 18 months. This climate cataclysm affected Europe, the Middle East and even parts of Asia over the course of the following decade. In fact, \u201cthis climatic downturn may well have profoundly altered the course of history.\u201d But what caused this global climate cataclysm?<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The Triumph of Death by Pieter Bruegel the Elder. (\u00a0<\/em>Public domain\u00a0<\/em><\/a>)<\/em><\/p>\n

References\u00a0in Historic Texts to a Global Climatic Cataclysm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Back in 2018,\u00a0Science<\/em><\/a>\u00a0reported that the medieval historian Michael McCormick had stated that 536 \u201cwas the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.\u201d In his historical work\u00a0Historiae Ecclesiasticae\u00a0<\/em>, translating as \u201cChurch Histories\u201d, the 6th century historian and church leader John of Ephesus wrote that \u201c\u00a0the sun\u00a0<\/a>became dark and its darkness lasted for 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Between the years 535 and 536, a series of major climatic events took place that could easily be described as a global\u00a0cataclysm<\/a>\u00a0with catastrophic consequences. \u201cEach day, it [the sun] shone for about four hours, and still this light was only a feeble shadow. Everyone declared that the sun would never recover its full light again,\u201d detailed Ephesus.<\/p>\n

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In fact, according to Brandon Specktor in\u00a0LiveScience<\/em><\/a>, \u201cthe fall of the Roman Empire may have been a partial result of the decade of famine and plague that began in A.D. 536.\u201d The fall in temperatures was in fact the beginning of the coldest decade to have been experienced during the last 2,000 years.<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Year of Darkness: The Climate Cataclysm of 536 You\u2019ve Never Heard Of During 536 the world was beset by a long winter. Dubbed \u201cthe year of darkness\u201d in the\u00a0New Scientist\u00a0, temperatures plummeted and the sun was dimmed by a vast fog which blocked its rays from hitting the earth during 24 hours a day over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,7],"tags":[32470,140,32471,1912,32472],"class_list":["post-61423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-ancient-origins","tag-climate","tag-climate-cataclysm","tag-food-production","tag-john-black"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61424,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61423\/revisions\/61424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}