Two months before Waterloo, in April 1815, Indonesia's Tambora erupted — its ash brought the 'Year Without a Summer' to Europe and North America.
The events
- Eruption of Mount Tambora1815 · Sumbawa, Indonesia. In April 1815 Tambora produced the most powerful eruption in recorded history: the mountain lost over a kilometre of height and an estimated 70,000+ people died. Its stratospheric ash cooled the planet. Two months later, Napoleon lost at Waterloo.
- Battle of Waterloo1815 · Waterloo. On 18 June 1815 Wellington's allied army and Blücher's Prussians defeated Napoleon. The battle ended the Hundred Days and the Napoleonic Wars, while the Congress of Vienna set up a new order in Europe.
More amazing facts
- 1804 1804: Napoleon crowned himself emperor, while the former slaves of Haiti, having beaten his army, declared independence — the first nation founded by a slave revolt.
- 1809 · 1859 · 1861 Darwin and Lincoln were born on the same day: 12 February 1809.
- 1825 1825: the first public steam railway opened in England, and in St Petersburg the Decembrists marched onto Senate Square.
- 1835 · 1859 Darwin spent five weeks on the Galápagos in 1835, but did not publish On the Origin of Species until 24 years later.
- 1844 In May 1844 Morse sent the first telegram from Washington to Baltimore; ten days later the last pair of great auks was killed in Iceland.
- 1850 · 1861 China's Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) overlapped with the American Civil War and cost an estimated 20–30 million lives — many times more.