It turned out to be 536 AD, when a huge part of the planet plunged into a mysterious fog.

According to the historian, there are things worse than the plague of 1349, which wiped out half of the population of Europe, and the flu epidemics of 1918, which killed from 50 to 100 million people.

Michael McCormick led the Harvard University project entitled "The Science of the Human Past". Scientists analyzed a number of catastrophic events and identified the most difficult year for people.

According to Procopius of Caesarea, a historian from Byzantium, in 536 Europe, the Middle East and some Asian countries were covered with twilight shroud.. About 18 months, people lived without full sunlight.

At the same time, the summer temperature dropped to 1.5-2.5 degrees Celsius, which was a record over the past 2300 years. In China, even recorded snow. Colds destroyed crops, leading to mass hunger among the population. Irish chronicles say that the harvest crisis lasted until 539. And already in 541 the Roman Empire was covered by the bubonic plague.

Michael McCormick was able to figure out the cause of the black fog in collaboration with glacier Paul Majewski of the University of Maine.. The solution provided the Swedish glacier. Ice samples of that time showed that in 536 a powerful volcanic eruption occurred in Iceland, emissions of which covered Eurasia with ashes..

Two more eruptions took place in 540 and 547. Together they led to the decline of the European economy, which lasted almost a century.

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