Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff, a production of iHeart Radio, Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, Lauren bog Obam Here. When a butterfly flaps
Speaker 1: its wings in the Amazon, chaos theory goes it may
Speaker 1: cause a tornado in Texas, or when the biggest volcanic
Speaker 1: explosion in human history takes place in Indonesia. Mary Shelley
Speaker 1: writes Frankenstein in Switzerland, well, amongst many other things. Eighteen
Speaker 1: sixteen was the year without a summer, caused by the
Speaker 1: near catastrophic environmental changes that occurred when Mount Tombora erupted
Speaker 1: over the course of four months of the previous year,
Speaker 1: starting on April five, eighteen fifteen. The blast instantly killed
Speaker 1: ten thousand people on the island where it's located, Zimbawa,
Speaker 1: which is part of the Lesser Sunda Islands. It was
Speaker 1: catastrophic and estimated ninety thousand people died on nearby islands,
Speaker 1: many of starvation after crops and forests were killed, fresh
Speaker 1: water was contaminated, a dozen cubic miles of debris were
Speaker 1: thrown into the atmosphere, and a blast a hundred times
Speaker 1: more powerful than Mountain Saint Helen's. But it isn't just
Speaker 1: debris that's flung into the air. When a volcano erupts, gases,
Speaker 1: including sulfur dioxide, reached the stratosphere. The sulfur dioxide is
Speaker 1: converted to sulfuric acid, where it can stay in the
Speaker 1: atmosphere for a couple of years. Those acid aerosols act
Speaker 1: as reflectors that allow less energy from the Sun to
Speaker 1: reach Earth's surface, and as a result, cooling occurs and
Speaker 1: for the northern hemisphere cool It was that year in America.
Speaker 1: In June of eighteen sixteen, there was twenty inches that's
Speaker 1: about fifty centimes of snow in New England, and the
Speaker 1: white stuff provided for festive sleigh rides in Virginia from
Speaker 1: May to September. In Ireland, it reigned a hundred forty
Speaker 1: two out of a hundred and fifty three days. Crops
Speaker 1: failed in North America, Europe, in China from frost or
Speaker 1: from unexpected drought or floods. It's the only year in
Speaker 1: recorded history where trees showed zero growth in the Northeast
Speaker 1: United States. Should you cut down one of the stately
Speaker 1: oaks that was alive then and count its rings to
Speaker 1: determine how many years it's been around, one ring would
Speaker 1: be missing some Americans nicknamed the year eighteen hundred and
Speaker 1: froze to death in China. Resulting instability may have allowed
Speaker 1: the British controlled opium trade to take hold. A cholera
Speaker 1: epidemic swept South Asia and gained ground, becoming the first
Speaker 1: cholera pandemic. In the following years, the American West started
Speaker 1: enticing failing New England farmers, creating the jumping off point
Speaker 1: for the Great migration westward. The dark, miserable weather of
Speaker 1: eighteen sixteen also inspired the poet Lord Byron to suggest
Speaker 1: to a summer guests and a Swiss villa to try
Speaker 1: their hand at ghost stories. A young Mary Shelley took
Speaker 1: to her room with candle light to penned the beginnings
Speaker 1: of Frankenstein. During that time, Byron wrote his poem Darkness,
Speaker 1: which begins I had a dream which was not all
Speaker 1: a dream. The bright sun was extinguished. Though to be fair,
Speaker 1: this summer that wasn't was also part of a larger
Speaker 1: cooling trend in the early nineteenth century, and we should
Speaker 1: note that the southern hemisphere seemed to be largely unaffected. Still,
Speaker 1: the no summer summer caused significant global ripples. The climate
Speaker 1: crisis lasted through eighteen eighteen. Failed crops led to hunger
Speaker 1: and poverty, and communities around the Northern hemisphere the prices
Speaker 1: of everything skyrocketed. On the positive side, in the long run, anyway,
Speaker 1: these tragedies seemed to have spurred evolving ideas about humanitarianism,
Speaker 1: which was unfortunately just rhetoric at the time, but may
Speaker 1: have been the beginning of some of the social programs
Speaker 1: that help people in need today. Yeah. Today's episode is
Speaker 1: based on the article eighteen sixteen was the Year Without
Speaker 1: a Summer on how stuff works dot com, written by
Speaker 1: Kate Kirshner. Brain Stuff is production of I Heart Radio
Speaker 1: in partnership with how stuff works dot Com and is
Speaker 1: produced by Tyler Clay. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.