The year 2020 will undoubtedly go down in history as the worst year ever â at least to those of us living in it. Then, in an ominous reminder of the real enemy, a ⦠It was two years prior, says History, when a particularly deadly strain of bacteria emerged in Mongolia. Let's talk 1919. Or something else? That all led to a collapse of the world's economic systems, and more than just a bad year or two â it wasn't until 575 that things started looking a little better.Â. 2020 Worst Year in History for Air Travel Demand. By the winter of 1315, farmers were forced to eat their seed stocks to make it through the cold months, and without seeds to plant, well, it's tough to grow crops. ADVERTISEMENT After the results of the study were released, some commenters drew parallels between the events of 536 and the eruption of Indonesiaâs Mount Tambora in 1815. During the summer of '43, white workers in Detroit halted production to protest the fact that their black coworkers had received promotions, and things spiraled into riots that were met with 6,000 army troops (via the Detroit Historical Society). It was his condemnation of the church's habit of making money by selling forgiveness. A bad year, indeed. That ultra-hot summer gave way to an ultra-cold winter, and famine was widespread. Well, according to The Conversation, he took over in 1521 with the help of a smallpox epidemic they'd brought with them. Average how many died throughout the year, and that clocks in at around 50 a day. Itâs not â not even close. 1347 CE was pretty bad. Is it the year with the most widespread suffering? When it comes to scientists, though, they donât bother with guesses or estimates, and have calculated the exact year it was the worst time to be alive in history; the year 536. The doomed year kicked off a devastating series of events, starting with a volcanic eruption that spewed so much ash into the air that the resulting temperature change led to mass crop failures and widespread starvation. Protests and violent confrontations spread to France, where it got so bad that King Louis-Philippe fled to Britain. Ivy League and Oxbridge university professors have said 2020 ranks only the eighth worst year in US history, behind the peak of the American Civil War in 1862, the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 and the Spanish flu pandemic in 1919. Perhaps the worst year in history was one of those during World War II, when more men killed each other than any other year. If someone asked you what the worst year in human history was, what would you guess? The summer of 1919 was known as the Red Summer, because of the racially-motivated violence that swept across the US. It wasn't nice. Here are some of the top contenders for the worst years in history. In 1517, he published his Ninety-Five Theses against Indulgences. It created a permanent break in Christianity, with ripples that are still felt today (via History Today). According to the BBC, his policies of exporting food from India to the warfront and to Britain resulted in large-scale famine, and the deaths of around 3 million people.Â, Back on the homefront, the US saw an outbreak of race riots. Any of the years of the Holocaust, between 1941 and 1945. It started in June 1783: the eruption of Iceland's Laki volcano (of which the crater pictured is all that's left). You could also argue that it set a dangerous precedent: Spain told Muslims the same thing about 100 years later (via The Guardian). Eyewitness accounts were terrible, with one Franciscan monk recording: "[...] as it was impossible to bury the great number of dead, they pulled down the houses over them, so that their homes became their tombs. 1348 The worst year of the Black Death which to date is the deadliest pandemic in human history with up to 200 million people killed 2. Ask medieval historian Michael McCormick what year was the worst ⦠On the top of my list, I would put 536 AD era. Oops. Cortés and his 500 men landed, and what they found was a vast, powerful empire of around 16 million people. Think 2020 is a bad year to be alive? While it peaked in the year 542, the plague lingered for another 200 years, and not just in the densely-populated city of Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and where as many as 5,000 people a day were perishing. Liberal thinkers, who'd had it with the long-reigning governments, started demanding things like religious liberty and parliamentary rule. We start from Ancient Greece, which could also include 1628 BC among its worst years, with the famous Minoan Eruption, on which, however, science has ⦠We'll start with the assassinations: 1968 saw the deaths of both Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy. The worst year in history. They weren't going to stand for it anymore.Â. Apart from the falling empires the world over and general political chaos, the year 536 also marked one of the worst global famines in human history. In doing so, he probably burned a lot of the contents. Then, Hungary demanded control of Transylvania, but the Romanians who were living there weren't sure what gave them the authority to do that. Then, they did more than talk. According to Slate, violence spiked in large part because black soldiers who had fought for their country came home to find friends and family being targeted, falsely accused, and lynched. Here are five worst years in the history of mankind. In historyâs immense tapestry of human misery, itâs not even in the top 100 worst years. And yep, he's one of the things that made this a contender for the worst year in history. There was a ton of acid rain, too. It really doesnât matter which year weâre in. There's been a ton of casualty-heavy wars, famines, and natural disasters. After all, a lot of people die â all of the time. 2020 is now over, and many have the feeling that it was one of the worst years in history. The years that saw terrible turning points for the world? According to History, it wasn't as well-thought-out as they'd hoped. According to a research team from the University of Nottingham and the Climate Change Institute of the University of Maine (via CNN), the very worst year in history was 536.Â. It was unspeakably devastating. As this happened, there were agreements to increase bombing runs, and fighting pretty much spread worldwide (via Historic UK). International tourist arrivals fell by one billion, or 74 percent, in 2020, according to the UNWTO, which called it "the worst year in tourism history." Not done yet! And with a 10-year treasury yield of 0.92% to start the year, it wouldnât take much of an increase to make this the worst year for bonds in history (-2.9% in 1994). In 48 BC, he ordered the harbor and all the ships in it to be set on fire ... and that fire spread to the library. The year 1918, when manâs technological advances culminated in one of the deadliest conflicts in world history. Indeed, there’s plenty of evidence to show that sometimes things can get worse – a lot, lot worse. Notably, this was the first time that contemporary historians recorded a plague as it spread and took root. When Hernán Cortés left Cuba, it was 1519 and he was heading into Mexico to explore and â he hoped â colonize the Aztec. It’s much easier to identify terrible periods for humanity, that is, times of war or centuries where not much happened at all, with people’s lives equal measures boring and terrifying. Riots broke out in more than 100 cities, and politics was a mess. But this hasnât been the only worst year we have known. The impact kicked off a series of large-scale events that wiped out about 80 percent of life on the planet, and it started with a fireball that killed everything within 625 miles. Animals starved or drowned in the floods. No one's sure, but certainly, the year that the world lost so much literature and knowledge has got to be up there among the worst. This is the idea that Columbus's voyage opened up an exchange between the New World and the Old (via the Journal of Economic Perspectives). Last year was the worst in history for cord-cutting, according to a new analysis out Tuesday from MoffettNathanson.The state of play: Pay-TV lost 6 million subscribing households in 2020, "with total subscriptions falling by 7.3% over the course of the year, and with penetration dropping to a level not seen in nearly thirty years. But is it really the worst? Famine in Europe was so bad, it was linked to causing 1789's French Revolution. Historyâs deadliest pandemics, from ancient Rome to modern America It was 1348, the ⦠Concentration camps were no longer just holding centers but, instead, became the sites for mass killings, says the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. This was also the same year that Prohibition was ratified, and that didn't work out for anyone. Within the year, more than half of Iceland's livestock were dead, along with 20 percent of their population.Â. All we can do is put forward suggestions and back up our claims with facts and other historical evidence. Let's start with the Treaty of Versailles, signed in 1919. More people died, and more than that? The worst years in human history, according to experts, include There were a few major events that made 1520 pretty terrible.Â, Let's talk about the one that happened very, very quickly first: the complete decimation of the Aztecs. The uber-Catholic rulers of Spain â Columbus supporters Ferdinand and Isabella â had gotten sick of non-Catholics in their country. Desegregation protests and the Orangeburg massacre, which left three dead and dozens wounded after a confrontation between black citizens and police. By the time it was over, almost one-half of Europe's population â between 25 to 50 million people â would be dead. The worst year in world history wasnât even a close contest. Things got... confusing. It's harder to determine than you might expect. According to Medievalists, the flooding was so bad that rising seas swallowed entire coastal communities, sending newly homeless people farther inland to already strained communities. And finally, 640 also gets a shout-out as the year Alexandria was conquered by Muslim invaders, who supposedly burned the texts to heat the bathhouses â and there were so many that it took six months. Unrest had been boiling for a long time â the 1840s saw Europe drop into an economic crisis that, according to The New York Times, hit the rural and urban poor the hardest. The third wave of the Spanish flu, a pandemic that had already killed millions, left countless children orphaned, and devastated entire towns. You might think the worst year in history is the one with the most deaths, but that doesn't really narrow things down. Deaths due to respiratory failure skyrocketed, and according to the Guardian, effects were far-reaching and long-lasting. This bad year's a little different, in that we don't know exactly when it happened. Also in 1919? 1848's heated rebellions amounted to a downright miserable year of largely pointless violence. That is, they were the real low points, the worst years of famines or wars or genocide. It gets worse: according to National Geographic, there were two volcanoes that erupted in a short time, with 536 being the first. Just what happened to the library is still debated, but the first person who usually gets the blame is Julius Caesar. I do not remember hearing about millions of people killed in World Wars or concentration camps in 2013 or 2014. It held an estimated half a million documents from all over the known world, and it also had gardens, a zoo, and space for more than 100 scholars to live, write, and research. What’s more, history isn’t necessarily linear, with things getting better all the time. In 1848, governments were having a real tough time of it. And here's the thing: the first strain of Black Death hit Europe in 1347, too, but things got really, really bad with the arrival of a second strain in January 1348. Other bad years were simply nadirs set within a longer period of misery. While Winston Churchill was becoming the figurehead of the righteous Allied advance, he was also doing something horrible in India. The volcano unleashed an insane amount of unpleasantness into the air. There were many dark eras in human history were people suffered a lot due to climate, virus and own stupidity. Time magazine has declared 2020 the âworst year ever,â drawing a red âXâ over the year on its latest cover. Stories of cannibalism were widespread by 1316, and fun fact, it's thought that it was about this time that the story of "Hansel and Gretel" came about. That was just the main library â there was also a "daughter" library, housed at the Temple of Serapis. The Worst Years In History According To Experts. For most of 1783, the air over the Northern Hemisphere was filled with "a sulfuric aerosol cloud," which basically meant the world smelled like rotten eggs and breathing gave people all kinds of respiratory problems. All in all, then, 542 was a bad year to be alive, even if you were lucky enough to be one of the 60% who survived the plague. The Great Famine, as 1314 later came to be called, impacted around 30 million people across much of Europe, with areas like Britain and Scandinavian particularly hard hit, thanks to the addition of wars and revolts. Over the course of 1520, around 40 percent of the entire population of Tenochtitlan was dead. However, despite being one of the most devastating plagues in human history, the Justinian Plague has largely been forgotten. You decide which calendar year was the most undeniably awful. 1962 â year of the Cuban Missile Crisis; 2001 â American is shaken by the 9/11 terrorist attacks ; 2020 â America records more COVID-19 deaths than any country, as unemployment soars, political divides worsen and the election is supremely bitter; Here are the most stressful years in world history as ranked by historians: The year 536, according to the experts, was the worst that there has ever been. Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash. The worst years ever globally: 1. But still, pinpointing single years as being shining examples of badness is very difficult. Translations: 2020 Caída Histórica de Demanda de Viajes Aéreos (pdf) 2020, la pire année de lâhistoire pour ⦠It was also the peak of another kind of homegrown racism: America was busy confining Japanese citizens into internment camps, a decision History calls one of the biggest violations of civil rights in the country's history. How'd colonization go? Geophysicists from Imperial College London and Purdue University put together a simulation that suggests what would have happened next, and most scenarios include 1,000-foot-high tsunamis, seismic activity that would register as a 10+ on the Richter scale, and 600-mph winds that scattered dirt, ash, debris, and â let's be honest â the charred remains of the dinosaurs across the entire planet. Another research team traced a volcanic eruption to 539 or 540 and blamed El Salvador's now-inactive Ilopango volcano for piling onto the misery of the years that followed, particularly for the Maya, who suffered massively in the wake of the double whammy. It's the same year that the Vietnam War was at its peak, and according to the Selective Service System, 296,406 entered into military service that year (more than surrounding years, save 1966). That might have been the end of the story, but throw in a little warfare (and some very literal throwing of diseased corpses) and it started to spread. ", While that was going on in the New World, something else was going on in the Old: Martin Luther was busy breaking Christianity.Â. By putting a massive burden on Germany, the treaty laid the groundwork for German discontent â which would ultimately lead to helping put Hitler into power. The height of the Black Death, 1348, when as many as 200 million people died, ranked No. But fast-forward just a single year, and you come to the year that The Atlantic calls the worst in modern history. What makes for the "worst" year in history? How's that for perspective? What else? It was probably the tale of children abandoned during the famine, who were kidnapped and destined for the dinner plate. It was one of the most darkest eras of all. Consider 1177 B.C., when many of the great civilizations of the Mediterranean Sea and Mideast collapsed , and the survivors struggled through a pre-modern Dark Ages. And also, I ⦠History says that instead of helping the nation chill out, organized crime flourished on a massive scale. Russia stepped on their revolution before it could really gain momentum, but liberal rebels had all kinds of problems. 1944 In August, a similar riot kicked off in Harlem, says Baruch College.Â. According to The Ohio State University, it was Ptolemy I Soter who founded the Royal Library of Alexandra in Egypt around 283 BC. But are you really sure? Then, the long-term effects of the impact â like muddy rains, darkened skies, wildfires, and the equivalent of a nuclear winter â would have been able to really get to work. The consequences of Christopher Columbus stumbling on the New World are enough to fill a library, so let's talk about the immediate effects: namely, the Columbian Exchange. Riots and revolutions kicked off in earnest, starting in Milan and Sicily. In February, the Viet Cong launched the Tet Offensive, and just the following month, there was another brutal headline: US troops had been involved with the My Lai massacre and the mass slaughter of civilians. Or 1918, the year of the st When considering the most stressful years in world history, 2020 ranked sixth in Bloom's survey. Thanks to them, we know that the Justinian Plague not only killed millions, it also led to a massive spike in grain prices, causing huge numbers of people to go hungry. The closest we've been able to get is "around 66 million years ago... give or take a bit," but what happened was something catastrophic: an asteroid â traveling at around 40,000 mph â hit the Earth in what we now call the Yucatan Peninsula. Then, in addition to the widespread death, there was also a massive rise in antisemitism, as a conspiracy theory started to spread. 2007, 2013, or 2020⦠if we have a quick look at some news from previous years, it looks like it is perfectly okay to consider, âYes, this has to be one of the worst years in history.â. 2016 hardly comes close. Let's go back to 1314, a "worst year" nominee because, according to Historic UK, that's when much of Europe was devastated by floods and famine. However, many of his citizens were not so lucky. Of course, the question of what actually was the worst year in all of human history is one that is constantly up for debate. The Summer of Love refers to 1967 and the embrace of the hippie culture, says The Guardian. TIME declares 2020 to be the worst year in history The TIME magazine has declared 2020 to be the worst year - and we can all relate. Not quite. Things really started going bad in the summer of 1314: that's when it rained almost constantly, and the ensuing floods ruined crops. Have a quick glance at the news cycle and it seems like it's completely legit to think, "Well, this has to be it. Which is true? "There have ⦠Rather, it was the unexpectedly cold winter that followed. According to National Geographic, the impact had the same effect more than 100 trillion tons of TNT would have, and let's put it this way: Terraton says one trillion tons is about equal to 5 billion blue whales, and according to Science, all the man-made stuff on the Earth weighs around 30 trillion tons. As food stores emptied and prices skyrocketed, famine set in, as even basics like wheat and salt were impossible to get. The Holocaust, in 1944, ranked second, followed by 1816, when a volcano eruption in Indonesia blocked out the sun. Some were standalone bad years – 12 months in which it all seemed to go wrong for humanity. It started with Australia on fire.By March, 46 million acres, an area roughly the size of Syria, had burned, destroying the habitats of more than 800 vertebrate species alone. In Hispaniola, those diseases killed 236,000 people or about 95 percent of the population.Â. This claim has never been fully substantiated, which is probably why there are other stories of the library's destruction. In reality, 1939 and 1941 were the worst years in history because they involved the deaths of millions of people killed from violence, wars, and camps. Slate asked historians to list some of the "worst" years in history. 1347 - Black Death . Columbus wasn't the only reason 1492 was one of the worst: it was also the year of the Spanish Expulsion. Why? From the years of 1347 to 1351, the Black Death caused by plague killed off almost 200 million around the world. But we can be grateful for at least one thing this Thanksgiving: Itâs been worse. That said, however, some years were certainly worse than others. The eruption lasted for a shocking eight months, and at the time, the world also experienced a surprisingly warm summer. Indeed, the plague that ravished large parts of the world between 541 and 542 led to an estimated 25-50 million deaths. There were a few things going on here. But that's not even the whole story, because according to researchers at Rutgers (via Science Daily), the hot summer wasn't the biggest problem or the result of the volcanic eruption. The worst year in world history, by the way, was not even close, the panel said. For every great triumph, there has been great disaster. Weâre on pace for that right now as the 10-year yield has moved up to 1.30% and US bonds are down 1.6% year-to-date. While the streets of Europe dissolved into violent, bloody clashes between rebels and the military, the old order stepped up, took control back, and not a whole lot got accomplished. So here we have 17 years that may well have been the worst in all of human history: Halfway through his reign, the Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I fell seriously ill. The fated year of 1968 ended with the election of Richard Nixon as the country was quite literally on fire. So here we have 17 years that may well have been the worst in all of human history: The late Roman Empire under Justinian was hit by a terrible plague. According to medieval historian Michael McCormick, 536 AD was âthe beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year.â Falling in the time known as the 'Dark Ages', the year 536 AD fully embraced this moniker as Europe, the Middle East and parts of Asia were plunged into 24-hour darkness for 18 months. Constantinople lost around 90 percent of their entire population in May 1347, and the spread continued its relentless march onwards. The list is pretty shocking: according to Business Insider, Columbus brought things like measles, influenza, smallpox, cholera, typhus, chickenpox, scarlet fever, Lyme disease, and whooping cough along with him (and that's just a partial list). Jews, it was falsely claimed, had been poisoning wells and spreading disease. People were still struggling in 542, and that's when the bubonic plague decided to take advantage of an already weakened world population. Another happened in 391 AD when then-ruler Theophilus converted the Temple of Serapis into a Christian Church. That bit of success encouraged German workers to start their own revolts, along with Austria and Prussia. Year 536 is known as the worst year in history! Indeed, there really is no right or wrong answer, no matter what some scientists or anthropologists might say. Ships were stuck in ports, trade stopped, crops died in the fields, and meat spoiled as soon as it was slaughtered. He pulled through and went on to stay in power for another decade. While Europeans got awesome things like potatoes, corn, tomatoes, and chili peppers, the New World got a heck of a lot of diseases they had no immunity to. 1, the Post reported. The 14th century was pretty rough, but 1348 gets a special mention. The pandemic cost the global tourism industry $1.3 trillion in lost revenue last year, more than 11 times the loss recorded during the 2009 global financial crisis. History tells us about more such horrible years. Had either or both of those men not died that year who knows what the world would look like today. While food rotted in the fields, livestock had it just as bad. Determining the worst year in history is pretty complicated, and it turns out that picking the "worst" is pretty subjective. Why 536 was âthe worst year to be aliveâ By Ann Gibbons Nov. 15, 2018 , 2:00 PM. Human history has had plenty of ups and downs. Discussions were dominated by the US, Britain, France, and Italy, and at the end of the day, the world found itself under a contract that no one was happy with. Most people are familiar with the rhyme: "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." What followed were layers and layers of terrible. 2020 worst year in history for air travel demand: IATA STAT Times Aviation Updated on February 5th, 2021 at 14:21 IST aviation aviation news Covid ⦠In 536, a massive volcano erupted in Iceland. Congratulations, humans, you've outdone yourselves.". Luther wasn't excommunicated for his views until 1520 â the point of no return, and the point where the Reformation kicked off in earnest. Every year during World War II could arguably be one of the worst years in history, but let's talk about 1943. The same panel of 28 historians ranked the following years ahead of ⦠It really doesn't matter which year we're in. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that the disease spread fast, and those who caught it had a horrible death to look forward to: there were the buboes and skin sores, followed by vomiting, fever, and chills. Wikimedia Commons. It turns out that sure, you can demand a unified nation, but what about non-Germans who were living in Germany? Hereâs a look at the ten worst years in human history. This means that around a quarter of the world’s population was wiped out in the space of two years. "Get market news worthy of your time with Axios Markets. That's the year the Black Death seriously hit Europe. In the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, global tourism had its worst year ever in 2020, with international arrivals down 74% compared to 2019. It should have been a good year: World War I ended on November 11, 1918, and it was smooth sailing from there on out, right? According to the Jewish Virtual Library, around 200,000 Jews were told to get out on July 30, 1492. The title of the worst year in history is easily held by the year 536 AD. the first strain of Black Death hit Europe in 1347, The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Christopher Columbus stumbling on the New World. Entire Jewish communities were destroyed by rampaging, violent mobs.