[Domestic Church]

"This weather is reminiscent of 1816 (The year there was no summer)."

Funny you should mention that...had just spoken of that summerless year yesterday afternoon and couldn't remember the date in history. We are at least two months behind up here and I'm waiting for the mildew to hit the corn which has finally sprouted a few inches. Nice weather for germs and molds. What was the winter of 1816/1817 like? Any epidemics?

[aristeides]

I just finished reading a book about the Congress of Vienna of 1814-15. At least in Europe, the winters of those two years were also severe. And there was a severe epidemic of flu in the winter of 1814-15. Most of the dignitaries at the congress in Vienna caught the flu. So did Napoleon on Elba.

[blam]

The Year Without Summer was from a dust veil in the atmosphere caused by numerous volcanoes erupting in prior years, the main contributor was Tambora in 1815. When Toba blew 75,000 years ago, only 2,000-5,000 humans worldwide survived, this event can be seen in our genes as a 'bottleneck.'

Tambora

The Infamous 'Year Without Summer'

[TaxRelief]

I see Blam has already sent you a link telling the story of 1816, but I love the way this version is written and we have read this story to our kids several times:

1816, The Year There Was No Summer

[TaxRelief]

The epidemics were rampant from 1804-1817, but the "year with no summer" (1816) was blamed for the "European Typhus Epidemic" that ravaged Southern Europe and the mediterranean and the "Cholera Epidemic of 1816-1817" in India.

There were a lot of premature pneumonia deaths in the US and there was famine throughout the Northern Hemisphere.

Historically, the bizarrely cold weather of 1816 may have been responsible for: the shift of farming from New England to the Midwest, the continuing difficulties France faced after the defeat of Napoleon, massive global migration and even the creation of some great works of art!