Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye.
Speaker 2: For a while now, like years, in the wake of
Speaker 2: years of rising temperatures, seemingly every summer being hotter than
Speaker 2: the one before, or at least as hot heat waves
Speaker 2: all over the world, I've really wanted to do some
Speaker 2: kind of episode about a historical heat wave. And I've
Speaker 2: written episodes over the years of doing this show about
Speaker 2: other weather phenomena and other natural disasters like Hurricane San Seriaco,
Speaker 2: the Schoolhouse Blizzard, the Long Winter, the Vanport flood, the
Speaker 2: year without a Summer, various earthquakes and fires and tsunamis
Speaker 2: and volcanic eruptions. We've got a lot of this in
Speaker 2: the archive, but never anything about a heat wave.
Speaker 1: In a lot of the.
Speaker 2: World today, Hey, heat waves just don't get as much
Speaker 2: attention as blizzards and floods and hurricanes, even though extreme
Speaker 2: heat is one of the deadliest weather events on average,
Speaker 2: and that is actually true in a lot of historical
Speaker 2: writing as well. I had a wealth of resources to
Speaker 2: draw from on all of those other episodes that I
Speaker 2: just mentioned, but getting the information together about heat waves
Speaker 2: from the past turned out to be a lot trickier.
Speaker 2: So instead of doing one episode about one heat wave,
Speaker 2: which is what I was planning when I started this,
Speaker 2: we are going to take a shorter look at three
Speaker 2: of them. As a note, it is very possible that
Speaker 2: when we mentioned specific temperatures in this episode, your first
Speaker 2: thought might be that is not that hot. H It's
Speaker 2: not that hot for some of the places that I
Speaker 2: have lived. It was unusually hot for the places that
Speaker 2: we are talking about in the time that those temperatures
Speaker 2: were happening. It's not a contest. We do not need
Speaker 2: to one up each other over the weather we have endured.
Speaker 1: And our first historical heat wave was not just heat wave.
Speaker 1: It was part of a massive severe drought that affected
Speaker 1: much of central Europe as well as northern Italy. Perhaps surprisingly,
Speaker 1: this was during the period of regional cooling known as
Speaker 1: the Little Ice Age, during which parts of the world,
Speaker 1: including parts of Europe, generally saw cooler, wetter weather, including
Speaker 1: the expansion of glaciers. Depending on the source and what
Speaker 1: criteria they're using to define it, the Little Ice Age
Speaker 1: lasted from about fifteen hundred to eighteen fifty, or from
Speaker 1: the end of the medieval warming period, so from about
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred to eighteen fifty.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Little Ice Age was complicated, though. I feel
Speaker 2: like even twenty years ago it was kind of being
Speaker 2: described as this global period of cooling, but it really
Speaker 2: did not mean that the whole world, or even just
Speaker 2: all of Europe, was consistently colder. It would be more
Speaker 2: accurate to say that a lot of the world saw
Speaker 2: more variable and sometimes more extreme weather overall in multiple
Speaker 2: directions during the Little Ice Age. In some areas, the
Speaker 2: cooler weather was accompanied by periods of drought rather than
Speaker 2: being wetter, But in central Europe and northern Italy the
Speaker 2: weather was both warmer and drier, particularly from fifteen thirty
Speaker 2: one to fifteen forty. There were multiple summer droughts during
Speaker 2: those ten years. An intense period of drought started in
Speaker 2: February of fifteen forty and it lasted for about eleven months.
Speaker 2: There are hundreds of written accounts of the weather and
Speaker 2: its effects during that year, but since they're overwhelmingly written
Speaker 2: in other languages, we're not going to try to read
Speaker 2: directly from them. In part of the affected regions. Surviving
Speaker 2: accounts from fifteen forty describe no rain at all or
Speaker 2: negligible rain for weeks or even months at a time.
Speaker 1: Water became scarce as Wells and springs dried up, and
Speaker 1: water levels fell in lakes, rivers, and streams. Accounts from
Speaker 1: all over Central Europe describe the ground becoming desiccated.
Speaker 2: This lack of water had far reaching effects. Of course,
Speaker 2: there were crop failures and trees and other plants lost
Speaker 2: all of their leaves. Livestock had to be driven a
Speaker 2: lot farther to find water sources that weren't totally depleted,
Speaker 2: and there were shortages of fodder to feed those animals
Speaker 2: because the fodder crops failed. So all of that contributed
Speaker 2: to a lot of livestock deaths.
Speaker 1: Water was also a major source of power, with rivers
Speaker 1: powering water wheels that were used to mill grain. Without
Speaker 1: enough water in the rivers, people turned to mills that
Speaker 1: were powered by horses, but those horses also needed food
Speaker 1: and water and could become overheated as they worked. People
Speaker 1: could grind grain for their own use using hand mills,
Speaker 1: but that wasn't really something that worked at large scale,
Speaker 1: especially with people facing the same heat and water shortages
Speaker 1: that these stock animals were. Rivers were also a major
Speaker 1: transportation route for people and goods, and in a lot
Speaker 1: of areas that whole transportation system just shut down.
Speaker 2: While the drought led a lot of crops to die
Speaker 2: in the fields. In some parts of Europe, fifteen forty
Speaker 2: became an exceptionally good wine. Here, a lot of vineyards
Speaker 2: tried to adjust their harvest based on the weather conditions.
Speaker 2: They either harvested early or they left fruit on the
Speaker 2: vine later than normal, hoping that another rainfall would come
Speaker 2: and would make the fruit juicier. At some vineyards around
Speaker 2: the Alsace region, the harvest was partial because some of
Speaker 2: the grapes had basically dried into raisins and just couldn't
Speaker 2: be salvaged. In places that delayed the harvest but did
Speaker 2: wind up with harvestable fruit, the resulting overly mature grapes
Speaker 2: turned into a wine that was very sweet, and fifteen
Speaker 2: forty wound up being described as a millennium vintage. It's
Speaker 2: likely that the lack of water contributed to the spread
Speaker 2: of illness. People did not have enough water to wash
Speaker 2: themselves or their environments. Some places actually banned doing laundry.
Speaker 2: During the driest weeks as wells dried up. People got
Speaker 2: water from sources that were likely to be contaminated, including
Speaker 2: rivers that had become sluggish and stagnant. The lack of
Speaker 2: rain meant that contaminants that would have been washed away
Speaker 2: or at least diluted in a typical year, stayed around.
Speaker 2: There was an epidemic of dysentery, and it is possible
Speaker 2: that as many as half a million people in Europe
Speaker 2: died of disease during this period, Much of it spread
Speaker 2: through Contaminated water was also a serious problem. In July,
Speaker 2: Martin Luther wrote a letter to his wife about forest
Speaker 2: fires in Germany that had burned at that time more
Speaker 2: than one thousand acres, and he thought that would probably
Speaker 2: make timber more expensive. There were also forest fires in
Speaker 2: the Voges Mountains in eastern France and in Hungary and Poland.
Speaker 2: Fires also struck villages and towns, and some of them
Speaker 2: burned down entire communities. That included Einbeck in central Germany,
Speaker 2: which was entirely destroyed on July twenty sixth fifteen. Forty
Speaker 2: hundreds of people were killed in that fire. Estimates range
Speaker 2: from one hundred to five hundred, especially in towns and villages.
Speaker 2: This spike in fires led to accusations of arson, and
Speaker 2: at least some of those accusations were connected to the
Speaker 2: changes that European societies were going through in the sixteenth century.
Speaker 2: The start of the Protestant Reformation is generally marked as
Speaker 2: Martin Luther posting his ninety five theses at the Castle
Speaker 2: Church in Wittenberg, Germany, on October thirty first, fifteen seventeen.
Speaker 2: Conflict between Protestants and Catholics was ongoing in fifteen forty
Speaker 2: and in Germany, Duke Einrich the Younger was accused of
Speaker 2: hiring arsonists to burn down Protestant communities in other areas,
Speaker 2: and a Baptists, who were facing religious persecution were the
Speaker 2: ones who were blamed for starting the fires. Most of
Speaker 2: these fires were probably accidental and just a byproduct of
Speaker 2: how dry everything was and how little water there was
Speaker 2: to fight them. There are lots of written records describing
Speaker 2: the lack of water, the crop failures, illnesses, and fires
Speaker 2: in fifteen forty, and there are written descriptions of the heat.
Speaker 2: Another letter from Martin Luther to his wife that summer
Speaker 2: describes the heat as unspeakable and unrelenting, and reads as
Speaker 2: though he is praying for the last day, meaning judgment day,
Speaker 2: so that that heat will be over. But we don't
Speaker 2: have anyone's first.
Speaker 1: Hand accounts of the actual temperature because modern thermometers did
Speaker 1: not exist yet.
Speaker 2: The earliest known thermometer like device was described by Philo
Speaker 2: of Byzantium in the third century BCE. This was a
Speaker 2: hollow lead bulb attached to a tube, with the end
Speaker 2: of the tube submerged in water. When the bulb was heated,
Speaker 2: the air in it would expand and bubbles would come
Speaker 2: out of the end of the tube.
Speaker 1: Through the water.
Speaker 2: When the bulb cooled down, water would then be drawn
Speaker 2: up into the tube from the vessel. But there was
Speaker 2: not any kind of a scale attached to this. It
Speaker 2: was just a way to illustrate that the volume of
Speaker 2: air expands when it's heated and contracts when it cools,
Speaker 2: and then that corresponds to changes in temperature. It was
Speaker 2: not a precise method of measuring air temperature by any stretch.
Speaker 1: So while we do have lots of general descriptions of
Speaker 1: what life was like, we don't have exact numbers of
Speaker 1: how hot the summer of fifteen forty was in Central Europe.
Speaker 1: Our knowledge of that comes from proxy data things like
Speaker 1: ice cores, tree rings, and pollen samples, combined with modeling techniques.
Speaker 1: But even with those sources of data, there is debate
Speaker 1: about exactly how high the temperatures reached during this event,
Speaker 1: specifically whether they were higher or lower than more modern
Speaker 1: day temperature records.
Speaker 2: A frequently used benchmark in a lot of writings about
Speaker 2: this is the summer of two thousand and three, which
Speaker 2: when it happened was described as the hottest summer in
Speaker 2: parts of Europe in five hundred years. Different researchers have
Speaker 2: concluded that the summer of fifteen forty was either below
Speaker 2: or above the high temperatures that were recorded in the
Speaker 2: summer of two thousand and three. Sort of depends on
Speaker 2: exactly how they're modeling. Some researchers have also noted that
Speaker 2: the summer of fifteen forty was so extreme that typical
Speaker 2: climate models can't really replicate it without changing the parameters
Speaker 2: in a way that go way beyond other known extreme
Speaker 2: weather events. It is also difficult to determine how many
Speaker 2: people died or became disabled as a result of this
Speaker 2: heat wave and drought, but it seems like the regions
Speaker 2: that were affected recovered fairly quickly after it subsided, in
Speaker 2: part because people already preferred to grow crops that could
Speaker 2: be drought tolerant, So once the weather started to cool
Speaker 2: and new crops were planted and water levels returned toward normal,
Speaker 2: people were able to grow, harvest, and mill much like
Speaker 2: they could before. We'll move on to another heat wave
Speaker 2: after a sponsor break. Our next heat wave took place
Speaker 2: in the UK and western Europe in seventeen fifty seven.
Speaker 2: By that point there were thermometers that could be used
Speaker 2: to more precisely measure the temperature. This built on the
Speaker 2: work of Philo of Byzantium. It's believed that Galileo developed
Speaker 2: a thermoscope that was somewhat similar to Pelos in the
Speaker 2: early sixteen hundreds. Other seventeenth century scholars did this as well,
Speaker 2: and some also developed a calibration system for their thermoscopes
Speaker 2: to approximate some kind of measurement. One was Italian physiologist
Speaker 2: Santorio Centorio, who made a thermoscope that was designed to
Speaker 2: go in the mouth. He could then use that to
Speaker 2: measure a person's body temperature. Physician and instrument maker Gabriel
Speaker 2: Fahrenheit developed the mercury in glass thermometer in seventeen fourteen,
Speaker 2: and he developed his Fahrenheit temperature scale ten years later.
Speaker 2: Swedish astronomer and physicist Under Celsius and others started at
Speaker 2: advocating for an internationally recognized temperature scale in the seventeen forties,
Speaker 2: leading to the Celsius or Centigrade scale. Celsius is often
Speaker 2: credited with inventing this scale, but his original seventeen forty
Speaker 2: two version placed the freezing point of water at one
Speaker 2: hundred degrees and the boiling point at zero, so opposite
Speaker 2: of how we know it today. Others flipped those values
Speaker 2: so that the boiling point was one hundred and made
Speaker 2: mercury thermometers that were calibrated to that scale. Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: not fully clear whether some of the people who were
Speaker 2: writing about temperature measurement around this time were working from
Speaker 2: Celsius's work or if they independently arrived at the idea
Speaker 2: of a scale that goes from the boiling point to
Speaker 2: the freezing point of water. Right, it could be either one.
Speaker 1: While we have more.
Speaker 2: Specific information about how hot it was in the summer
Speaker 2: of seventeen fifty seven. That information is still somewhat sparac
Speaker 2: Attic mercury thermometers and the fahrenheit and Celsius scales were
Speaker 2: obviously very new, and it was new enough that a
Speaker 2: lot of the English language writing about this heat wave
Speaker 2: does not just say that people were using a thermometer.
Speaker 2: They all say fahrenheit's thermometer Specifically. People understood that they
Speaker 2: would get the most accurate readings on this thermometer if
Speaker 2: it was in the shade rather than in direct sunlight.
Speaker 1: But it's not always.
Speaker 2: Clear how well people protected their thermometer from the sun,
Speaker 2: or whether their readings were inflated because the thermometer was
Speaker 2: not adequately protected, or maybe was very close to something
Speaker 2: that was getting more direct sunlight.
Speaker 1: There was also no way to continuously record the temperature.
Speaker 1: People had to look at the thermometer and write it down.
Speaker 1: Some of the people who wrote about the heat in
Speaker 1: July of seventeen fifty seven noted that they took their
Speaker 1: measurement at three in the afternoon. That was probably during
Speaker 1: the hottest part of the but it's not possible to
Speaker 1: know whether it got hotter before or after someone took
Speaker 1: their measurement. Regular reliable official temperature records didn't start in
Speaker 1: much of the world until the mid to late nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: A lot of the written documentation of the fifteen forty
Speaker 1: drought and heat wave is in the form of personal
Speaker 1: and business letters, diaries, chronicles, and, in the case of
Speaker 1: those arson allegations, court records. By the eighteenth century, though,
Speaker 1: the European scientific community had started establishing scientific journals. The
Speaker 1: first was Philosophical Transactions, which was established in March of
Speaker 1: sixteen sixty five by Henry Oldenberg, who was Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Royal Society. Philosophical Transactions documented the Royal Society's activities,
Speaker 1: including letters and papers that were read before Royal Society meetings.
Speaker 1: Some of these letters were between John Hucksam and William Watson,
Speaker 1: who were both medical doss and Royal Society fellows. Huxham
Speaker 1: wrote to Watson on July nineteenth, seventeen fifty seven, saying,
Speaker 1: in part quote, from the seventh to the fourteenth of
Speaker 1: this month, the heat was violent, greater indeed than has
Speaker 1: been known here in the memory of man. I have
Speaker 1: talked with several persons who have lived considerable time in Jamaica, Gibraltar,
Speaker 1: and Minorca, and they generally assert that they never felt
Speaker 1: such intense heat in any of those places. Huxham went
Speaker 1: on to say that in the Shade, Fahrenheit's thermometer read
Speaker 1: eighty seven degrees at three in the afternoon on the
Speaker 1: eleventh and thirteenth of July, and that it was above
Speaker 1: eighty eight on the twelfth. That's about thirty point five
Speaker 1: and thirty one point one degrees celsius. Huxham continued, quote,
Speaker 1: abundance of people have suffered very feverishly from these excessive heats. Putrid, bilious,
Speaker 1: particial nervous fevers are exceedingly common everywhere. Dysenteries, hemorrhages at
Speaker 1: most profuse sweats affect not only those in fevers, but
Speaker 1: of vast many others. He described both the days and
Speaker 1: the nights as intolerably hot, with people unable to sleep,
Speaker 1: and the wind even blowing hot so that it brought
Speaker 1: no relief. This publication in Philosophical Transactions also included a
Speaker 1: note from Watson with a table of temperatures recorded in
Speaker 1: Plymouth using Fahrenheit's thermometer. The temperatures were in the eighties
Speaker 1: from July tenth to fifteenth, with a peak of eighty
Speaker 1: five on July fourteenth. That's about twenty nine point four
Speaker 1: degrees celsius.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the temperatures that people would have been expecting in
Speaker 2: these areas at this point would have been more in
Speaker 2: the high seventies. On July twelfth, past podcast subject Horace
Speaker 2: Walpole wrote a letter to his friend John Shoot about
Speaker 2: his willingness to visit Shoot at his estate in Hampshire
Speaker 2: known as the Vine. Quote, I say nothing of the
Speaker 2: heat of this magnificent weather, with the glass yesterday up
Speaker 2: to three quarters of sultry. In all English probability, this
Speaker 2: will not be a hindrance long though at present so
Speaker 2: far from traveling. I have made the tour of my
Speaker 2: own garden, but once these three days before eight at night,
Speaker 2: and then I thought I should have died of it.
Speaker 2: For how many years we shall have to talk of
Speaker 2: the summer of fifty seven.
Speaker 1: A few days later, on the sixteenth, Walpole wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to George Montague saying, quote, the weather has been
Speaker 1: so hot, and we are so unused to it that
Speaker 1: nobody knew how to behave themselves. Even mister Bentley has
Speaker 1: done shivering. That was writer Richard Bentley, who was part
Speaker 1: of Walpole's Committee of Taste along with Shoot. A letter
Speaker 1: Walpole sent to Shoot ten days later described Bentley as
Speaker 1: suffering from sweating sickness quote, which I now firmly believe
Speaker 1: was only a hot summer like this, and England, being
Speaker 1: so unused to it, took it for a melody. The
Speaker 1: heat returned that August, and John Huxam wrote to William
Speaker 1: Watson again. This letter was also published in Philosophical Transactions.
Speaker 1: This time Huxam said that his thermometer read almost eighty
Speaker 1: six degrees or thirty celsius from August eighth through the tenth.
Speaker 1: This time, he wrote, quote, the consequences of this extremely
Speaker 1: hot season were hemorrhages from several parts of the body,
Speaker 1: the nose, especially in men and children, and the uterus
Speaker 1: in women. Sudden and violent pains of the head and vertigo,
Speaker 1: profuse sweats, great debility and oppression of the spirits affected many.
Speaker 1: There were putrid fevers in great abundance, and a vast
Speaker 1: quantity of fluxes of the belly, both bilious and bloody,
Speaker 1: with which the fevers also were commonly attended. Husam described
Speaker 1: these fevers as accompanied by severe pains in the back
Speaker 1: and stomach, vomiting, chest pain, anxiety, and an inability to sleep.
Speaker 1: At this point, medicine in Europe was still largely dominated
Speaker 1: by the idea of the four humors, and from there
Speaker 1: he describes the quality of the pulse in people who
Speaker 1: were affected and their blood which was quote oftentimes florid,
Speaker 1: but loose, sometimes livid, very rarely fizzy. He thought blood
Speaker 1: letting was always beneficial, especially if it was done early
Speaker 1: in people who developed this heat related fever. It seems
Speaker 1: as though the weather was milder off the southern coast
Speaker 1: of the UK. John Smeaton also wrote a letter that
Speaker 1: was read before the Royal Society about conditions at Eddystone Lighthouse,
Speaker 1: south of Plymouth. He said that the weather had been
Speaker 1: very moderate there in July, sometimes even cold for the season.
Speaker 2: I read this letter as like weirdly braggy and doubting
Speaker 2: the accuracy of other people's reports of intense, un terrible heat.
Speaker 1: Gosh, it's terrific here. We actually need to wear sweaters.
Speaker 1: Scottish physician James Lynde, who is most well known for
Speaker 1: his recommendation that citrus could be used to prevent scurvy
Speaker 1: in Sailors published an Essay on the Most Effectual Means
Speaker 1: of Preserving the Health of Seamen in the Royal Navy
Speaker 1: in seventeen forty four. A section of its appendix is
Speaker 1: called Comparative Degrees of Heat and Cold in different latitudes,
Speaker 1: and among other things, it describes typical temperatures in Edinburgh
Speaker 1: and what it was like in the summer of seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty seven. He wrote quote in the warmest weather in June,
Speaker 1: July and August, the mercury was commonly at seventy in
Speaker 1: the middle of the day and sixty four in the night.
Speaker 1: But during uncommon heats it has risen to seventy three
Speaker 1: and seventy five, perhaps once or twice in a year,
Speaker 1: and sometimes not in two years. The greatest heat observed
Speaker 1: by the instrument there was on the twelfth July seventeen
Speaker 1: fifty seven, when in the middle of the day and
Speaker 1: well shaded, it mounted to eighty degrees. The heat was
Speaker 1: then quite stifling. Seventy degrees fahrenheit is about twenty one
Speaker 1: point one degree celsius, seventy five is about twenty three
Speaker 1: point eight, and eighty fahrenheit is roughly twenty six point
Speaker 1: six degrees celsius. Temperatures spiked in France in the summer
Speaker 1: of seventeen fifty seven as well, with a recorded high
Speaker 1: of ninety nine point five degrees fahrenheit or thirty seven
Speaker 1: point five celsius that was reported in Paris on July fourteenth.
Speaker 1: But beyond the general description repeated in a lot of
Speaker 1: places of the hottest summer since fifteen forty, I just
Speaker 1: did not find a lot of specific information about the
Speaker 1: heat wave's death toll or other effects. It does seem
Speaker 1: like on average, temperatures in Europe started to cool after
Speaker 1: seventeen fifty seven, and that cooling trend cantinued until just
Speaker 1: after the start of the twentieth century. One model shows
Speaker 1: nineteen oh two as the coolest European summer in the
Speaker 1: last five hundred years. But then, of course things really
Speaker 1: started to heat up again, and we will talk about
Speaker 1: some of that heat after we pause for a sponsor break.
Speaker 2: Our last heat wave today is more recent than what
Speaker 2: we typically talk about on the show. When I started
Speaker 2: working on this episode, my whole plan was for it
Speaker 2: to be only about the July heat wave of seventeen
Speaker 2: fifty seven and then I realized I just did not
Speaker 2: have enough information to do a whole episode only on that.
Speaker 2: But that summer is usually described as the hottest one
Speaker 2: from fifteen forty to two thousand and three. Sometimes fifteen
Speaker 2: forty and two thousand and three are presented almost like
Speaker 2: brackets around the summer of seventeen fifty seven. So once
Speaker 2: I decided to talk about fifteen forty, it made sense
Speaker 2: to talk about that more recent one as well. And
Speaker 2: there is of course way more data about the two
Speaker 2: thousand and three heat wave than the other two that
Speaker 2: we've talked about today. Thanks to a massive network of
Speaker 2: weather monitoring stations and the ability to process and evaluate data,
Speaker 2: we know that the summer of two thousand and three
Speaker 2: saw temperatures in Europe that were often between twenty and
Speaker 2: thirty percent higher than average. Overnight temperatures were often higher
Speaker 2: than the typical high during the day, and these conditions
Speaker 2: lasted from June to mid August. The highest recorded temperature
Speaker 2: in the UK during this heat wave was thirty eight
Speaker 2: point one celsius or one hundred point fifty eight fahrenheit,
Speaker 2: and that was at the time the highest temperature ever
Speaker 2: recorded in the UK. Switzerland set a record of forty
Speaker 2: one points five celsius or one hundred and six point
Speaker 2: seven fahrenheit. Temperatures in central and western Europe were around
Speaker 2: thirty five to forty degrees celsius or ninety five to
Speaker 2: one hundred and four fahrenheit repeatedly over the course of
Speaker 2: this heat wave. According to the UN Environment Program, this
Speaker 2: heat wave was Europe's worst natural disaster in fifty years,
Speaker 2: and one of the ten deadliest over the previous century.
Speaker 2: Its Environment Alert bulletin about the heat wave estimated that
Speaker 2: the death hole would be more than thirty thousand people.
Speaker 2: There were more than fourteen thousand deaths in France alone,
Speaker 2: disproportionately in Paris. Many of the people who died were elderly,
Speaker 2: and the most vulnerable group in France was elderly women
Speaker 2: who were living alone. So many people died in France
Speaker 2: that temporary morgues had to be set up using refrigerated trucks.
Speaker 2: Some other sources report even higher numbers for the total
Speaker 2: death hole, as many as seventy thousand across Europe. A
Speaker 2: major factor was the fact that a lot of homes
Speaker 2: and public buildings in this part of Europe are not
Speaker 2: air conditioned. Especially if they're historic structures rather than newly built.
Speaker 2: So before anybody gets on their high horse about air
Speaker 2: conditioning discourse, which there has been a lot of this summer,
Speaker 2: a lot of it with Americans making it sound like
Speaker 2: we're superior because of our very prevalent air conditioning. Heat
Speaker 2: waves are a significant cause of death, especially in elderly
Speaker 2: people in the United States too. Those deaths disproportionately affect
Speaker 2: the most vulnerable people. Extreme heat causes more fatalities on
Speaker 2: average than any other type of weather in the United States,
Speaker 2: and those numbers in the US are rising, not falling.
Speaker 2: But after the two thousand and three heat wave, which
Speaker 2: was so devastating in France, the French government established an
Speaker 2: emergency plan for extreme heat events, which include providing cooling
Speaker 2: spaces and water checking on vulnerable people, and there's also
Speaker 2: been ongoing work to plant more trees and provide more
Speaker 2: shade in public places, and to get more air conditioning installed,
Speaker 2: including in medical facilities. More broadly, France is legally bound
Speaker 2: to reach carbon neutrality by twenty fifty, which is of
Speaker 2: course part of the effort to slow the rate of
Speaker 2: global warming. So the number of heat related deaths in
Speaker 2: France has been much smaller in heat waves that have
Speaker 2: taken place since two thousand and three and since these
Speaker 2: plans were created. In addition to the deaths that were
Speaker 2: directly related to the heat, another major cause of death
Speaker 2: in some parts of Europe during the two thousand and
Speaker 2: three heat wave was drowning. This has been true in
Speaker 2: other heat waves as well. Authorities in Germany reported that
Speaker 2: nearly one hundred people drowned in June of twenty twenty six,
Speaker 2: while France reported forty deaths from drowning in that heat wave.
Speaker 2: Official in both countries compared that number to the number
Speaker 2: of people who had drowned during the heat wave of
Speaker 2: two thousand and three. Yeah, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: We have not seen numbers like this since two thousand
Speaker 2: and three. Unlike the people who were most at risk
Speaker 2: of like direct heat related causes, who tended to be
Speaker 2: older people, a lot of the people who drowned were
Speaker 2: young people, especially boys and young men, who of course
Speaker 2: were just trying to cool off. The heat wave and
Speaker 2: the drought that it was part of in two thousand
Speaker 2: and three also of course affected agriculture and industry, and
Speaker 2: a lot of that was really similar to what we
Speaker 2: talked about happening back in fifteen forty. Central Europe faced
Speaker 2: fodder shortages as those crops were depleted. Production also dropped
Speaker 2: for poultry and potatoes and grains. Forest fires were widespread
Speaker 2: and they were exacerbated by the dry conditions and water
Speaker 2: stress on the trees. There were more than twenty thousand
Speaker 2: fires across the affected parts of Europe and that burned
Speaker 2: almost six hundred and fifty thousand hectares of forest. According
Speaker 2: to the World Glacier Monitoring Service, Alpine glaciers decreased by
Speaker 2: up to ten percent in two thousand and three. Thawing
Speaker 2: in mountainous areas also destabilized the landscape and that led
Speaker 2: to landslides and rock slides. We talked about how the
Speaker 2: fifteen forty drought affected things like grain mills, which were
Speaker 2: powered by water wheels, although fewer industries are powered in
Speaker 2: this way today. Water is critical to the production of electricity,
Speaker 2: both through hydropower plants and in providing cooling for the
Speaker 2: other types of power plants. In France, some nuclear reactors
Speaker 2: had to be shut down in two thousand and three
Speaker 2: because there wasn't enough water available to cool them, and
Speaker 2: others had to keep running even though the temperature of
Speaker 2: the available water exceeded safe levels.
Speaker 1: This led to power shortages, which remained worse by the
Speaker 1: spike in demand for things like refrigerator and air conditioning.
Speaker 1: As we said earlier, there's some debate about whether the
Speaker 1: two thousand three heat wave and drought were worse than
Speaker 1: the one in fifteen forty. I read multiple papers on
Speaker 1: this when preparing this episode. We do know, however, that
Speaker 1: subsequent years have been hotter than two thousand and three.
Speaker 1: Was The UK record from the two thousand and three
Speaker 1: heat wave was broken in twenty twenty two when temperatures
Speaker 1: in England reached forty point three celsius or one hundred
Speaker 1: and four point five fahrenheit. On June twenty eighth, twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: temperatures in France reached forty five point nine celsius or
Speaker 1: one hundred and fourteen point six fahrenheit. That broke its
Speaker 1: two thousand and three heat wave record by almost two
Speaker 1: degrees celsius. This was the first time a temperature higher
Speaker 1: than forty five celsius was ever recorded in France. According
Speaker 1: to the World Meteorological Association, the last eleven years have
Speaker 1: been the eleven warmest years on record, and June of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty six, which of course was part of the
Speaker 1: inspiration for this episode, was the hottest June on record
Speaker 1: ever in Western Europe. We will end with a passage
Speaker 1: from John Scott from his poem written in the Hot
Speaker 1: Weather July seventeen fifty seven. This was published in his
Speaker 1: seventeen sixty four Elegies Descriptive and Moral, And this is
Speaker 1: from the end of the poem, when the heat wave
Speaker 1: is about to break even now behold the grateful change
Speaker 1: at hand. Hark in the east. Loud, blustering gales arise
Speaker 1: wide and more wide. The darkening clouds expand, and distant
Speaker 1: lightnings slash along the skies. Oh, in the awful concert
Speaker 1: of the storm, while hail and rain, and wind and
Speaker 1: thunder join. Let the great rulers praise my song in form.
Speaker 1: Let wonder, reverence, gratitude be mine.
Speaker 2: I picked that part from the whole poem because it's
Speaker 2: the part that has a sense of relief from the
Speaker 2: heat coming, and that is three historic heat waves. Do
Speaker 2: you have a sense of listener mail coming? I do
Speaker 2: have some listener mail. This listener mail is from Katie.
Speaker 2: Katie wrote after we talked about the Bunker Hill monument
Speaker 2: and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and said, hello, ladies,
Speaker 2: I just listened to your Bunker Hill episode and was
Speaker 2: so happy that you said Bill Ricca correctly. I've been
Speaker 2: waiting for the perfect moment to send a note to you,
Speaker 2: and this was perfect. I grew up in Boston and
Speaker 2: have always been a revolutionary war nerd maybe not by
Speaker 2: choice but by environment. Anyways, with all that is happening
Speaker 2: with the country, I have to say it makes it
Speaker 2: hard for me to be excited for the two fiftieth.
Speaker 2: When I saw this episode, I said, yay Boston, and
Speaker 2: I think listening to pods like yours and being conscious
Speaker 2: of how I am acknowledging the two fiftieth is the
Speaker 2: way to go. So current plan for the fourth listening
Speaker 2: to Hamilton, making a green reflecting pool cocktail and making
Speaker 2: crafts that incorporate my new mantra, crush garlic and the patriarchy.
Speaker 2: For my pet tax I present to you my two boys,
Speaker 2: Maverick Cat and Fetucini Snake. Maverick is a wild goblin
Speaker 2: that shreds my boxes and my sanity, but redeems himself
Speaker 2: with very good snuggles Fetichini. My yellow noodle is a
Speaker 2: ball python and much more of a laid back little guy.
Speaker 2: Maverick would love to be friends, but my tank is
Speaker 2: incredibly catproof. Thank you for being the best moral compass
Speaker 2: and saying what I'm thinking about the state of things.
Speaker 2: And then we have just some adorable animal pictures.
Speaker 1: I love a ball python. I think they have the
Speaker 1: cutest faces. Yeah, yeah, they just look sort of sweet.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of snakes that have very cute faces,
Speaker 2: and I have recently this doesn't have anything to do
Speaker 2: with the episode or even the email. I have recently
Speaker 2: learned that there are people who work in areas that
Speaker 2: have a lot of venomous snakes to help train dogs
Speaker 2: to detect and avoid those snakes, And so they put
Speaker 2: a little muzzle on the rattlesnake. It's a very soft thing.
Speaker 2: The snake can still drink, still use their tongue, but
Speaker 2: they cannot open their mouth enough for their fangs to
Speaker 2: pop out. Gotcha. So then that way the dog can
Speaker 2: smell and see and react to the snake without either
Speaker 2: of them being in danger. And then people who do
Speaker 2: this in a reputable way also only do this for
Speaker 2: a limited amount of time so that they're not stressing
Speaker 2: the snake out too much, right, and then the dogs
Speaker 2: learn not to go snifit that thing and then get
Speaker 2: bitten on the nose and you're at the veterinary emergency
Speaker 2: room to get snake bite treatment. Anyway, I have to say,
Speaker 2: Fetacini is a brilliant name. It's a great name. And
Speaker 2: now has anyone ever named.
Speaker 1: A snake Alfredo Lingui maybe to get a little a
Speaker 1: little ratitude reference in maybe thinking about it.
Speaker 2: And then we do also have a picture of this
Speaker 2: craft project of crush some garlic and the patriarchy.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Katie. If you would like to
Speaker 2: send us a note where at History podcast at iHeartRadio
Speaker 2: dot com, if you would like to find the show
Speaker 2: notes to our episodes where you can read all of
Speaker 2: the research that I use to prepare this. That is
Speaker 2: at our website which is Missed Inhistory dot com. And
Speaker 2: you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app
Speaker 2: or anywhere else you like to get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Missed in.
Speaker 2: History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts
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