Well, it took way too long but finally, all of us are breathing sighs of relief that 2020 is about
to be over. This year… was like that night out you desperately want to forget happen, but instead you
wake up, and oh my god it’s Groundhog Day. And you have to live it all over again. But even
with the insane amount of stuff that happened this year, 2020 isn’t actually as devastatingly awful
as some of the year's human beings have endured in the past. And that’s saying a lot. So today,
after the long slog that was, this year Nutty History takes you through some of the most awful
years from the vault of history where humanity got kicked in the face. Oh, that looked rough!
1919 should have been the year of triumph, peace, and tranquility. It was the year where the
bloodiest war in human history up to that point finally ended. Well, that didn’t stop things from
going South. Not only did world war 1 continue for the better part of the year, but the Spanish Flu
pandemic of 1918 rolled over into 1919, claiming hundreds of thousands of lives and pouring more
salt into a brutally stinging wound. Even the end of the war was massively underwhelming.
The bullish treaty of Versailles was proof that none of the imperial powers learned any lessons
from the first world war and imperialism continued to be a blight on the world. So,
40 million people died for almost-- nothing. And on top of that, a civil war broke out in Russia,
the map of the middle east was redrafted; creating diplomatic grievances that exist even today, and
the Treaty of Versailles gave a guy named Adolf Hitler the bright idea-- to join politics. But the
biggest takeaway of 1919, the year prohibition came onto the scene. What are you looking at?
After a quiet chill first five months, on June 8th, 1783, The Laki Volcanic region in
Iceland started a lava party which put the entire neighborhood in a state of misery. And when we say
neighborhood, we mean the entire frikkin’ world. You had us in the first half, 1783!
Not gonna lie! The volcanic eruption started by Laki lasted for whoopin’ 8 months! Huge volumes
of ash and other volcanic elements spread into the atmosphere starting a chain of natural disasters
now known as Móðuharðindin. In English, it was called the missed hardships. Tens of thousands
of people died in Europe including one-third of the Icelandic population. The temperature rose
in the pacific, thanks to massive sulfur dioxide in the air, causing abnormal weather patterns.
Famine hit India and Japan hard. India lost over eleven million people,
while Japan’s population declined by a million as well.
The Great Depression may have begun four years prior with the biggest stock market
crash thus far, but it all reached its apex in 1933. Almost 15 million Americans, one out of
every four adult US citizens were unemployed. Poverty and uncertainty were lingering on every
sunrise and sunset as one after another, half of the American banks defaulted. Europe-- was
in no better condition, the economic crisis had cast its shadows across the pond too,
but the even bigger concern at the time was the obvious rise of Fascism all over Europe.
Hitler acquired full control over Germany in 1933 and his Nazi Party established the first
concentration camp at Dachau. Trade unions were banned, books were burned, and the party slowly
began rounding up people of Jewish descent. Spain had Francisco Franco already in power,
Joseph Stalin was strengthening his grasp over Russia, and Mussolini was celebrating a decade
of his reign in Italy. And to top it all Japan bailed out of the League of Nations this year,
marking the beginning of the end for an already weak diplomatic organization. 1933
was the year that made the second world war inevitable.
The 6th century was definitely not a great time to be alive but 536 AD takes the cake
for being “the darkest year of the dark ages”. 536 was so dark that across Europe,
the middle east, and most parts of Asia; nobody saw sunlight for the whole year.
The temperature took a nosedive and as winter arrived crops died all across the globe. Yup,
Winter came indeed! This period of extreme cold and starvation caused thousands of deaths and
a miserable living standard that led to an economic disaster throughout Europe,
even shook the core of the Byzantine empire. The real aftertaste of 536 was felt in 541,
when the Justinian plague broke out due to the chain of events set in motion by the freakish
temperature drop. The plague cost millions of lives for the next TWO HUNDRED YEARS!
Speaking of pandemics, we can’t honestly complete this video without mentioning 1347,
the year of the black death. The plague had already killed thousands of people around the
Black sea when it reached Europe through trade ships. The saying, “Enjoy lunch with friends
at their home, and dinner with your ancestors in heaven” was pretty popular during this year. The
total number of casualties to the plague varies but all sources put them around 200 million.
To put it in perspective, the black death claimed three-fifths of the European population
and left a scarring trauma for those who survived it. This made the conditions ripe
for religious leaders and doom-mongers to spread superstition and corrupt the rest of the systems
as they saw fit. Got to say, we should feel fortunate that we’ve managed to get a vaccine
for Covid-19 in the present day. But what about you, do you still think 2020 can go
toe-to-toe with the years we listed? Or is there another year you think tops this list?
Let us know in the comments and be sure to subscribe to Nutty History.