'536' The worst year to be alive
In A.D. 536, Europe had a terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad year
It started when a mysterious fog swept over the continent, veiling the sun in a blue haze and casting Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia into darkness 24 hours a day, for 18 months. Falling temperatures ushered in the coldest decade of the past 2,000 years, crops failed from Ireland to China, and famine ran rampant. Those who endured the long, cold night faced even harsher times in the years to come; in A.D. 541, an outbreak of bubonic plague known as Justinian's Plague scythed through the Mediterranean, killing up to 100 million people.
Evidences
The Gaelic Irish Annals record the following:
"A failure of bread in the year 536 AD" – the Annals of Ulster
"A failure of bread from the years 536–539 AD" – the Annals of Inisfallen
Further phenomena were reported by a number of independent contemporary sources:
Low temperatures, even snow during the summer (snow reportedly fell in August in China during the Northern and Southern dynasties, which caused the harvest there to be delayed
Crop failures
"A dense, dry fog" in the Middle East, China and Europe
Drought in Peru, which affected the Moche culture
It has been conjectured that the changes were due to ashes or dust thrown into the air after the eruption of a volcano (a phenomenon known as "volcanic winter"). or after the impact of a comet[14] or meteorite.The evidence of sulfate deposits in ice cores strongly supports the volcano hypothesis; the sulfate spike is even more intense than that which accompanied the lesser episode of climatic aberration in 1816, popularly known as the "Year Without a Summer", which has been connected to the explosion of the volcano Mount Tambora in Sumbawa.
Source:weiki
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