536 is called one of the worst years to be alive: volcanic haze dimmed the sun across the Northern Hemisphere, and five years later the Plague of Justinian began.
The events
- Volcanic winter of 536536 · Constantinople. Throughout 536 the sun shone dimly, 'like the moon', wrote Procopius; snow fell in summer and crops failed from Europe to China. Tree rings mark it as the start of the coldest decade in 2,000 years, blamed on volcanic eruptions.
- Plague of Justinian541–549 · Constantinople. The first documented plague pandemic appeared at Pelusium in Egypt in 541 and a year later ravaged Constantinople, where thousands died each day. DNA from victims confirmed Yersinia pestis; outbreaks recurred for two centuries.
More amazing facts
- 301 · 313 · 330 Among the first Christian states were Armenia (traditionally 301) and Aksum in Ethiopia (around 330).
- 378 In January 378, a party from Teotihuacan arrived at the Maya city of Tikal, about 1,000 km away.
- 476 · 1453 The Eastern Roman Empire outlived the Western one by almost 1,000 years: Rome fell in 476, Constantinople only in 1453.
- 476 · 499 Twenty-three years after the Western Roman Empire fell, India's Aryabhata wrote that the sky only appears to move — it is the Earth that rotates.
- 794 · 1868 Kyoto (Heian-kyō) was Japan's capital for more than 1,000 years — from 794 until the emperor moved to Tokyo after the Meiji Restoration.
- 800 When Charlemagne was crowned emperor in 800, Borobudur — the world's largest Buddhist temple — was being built on Java.