Radiolab - Worst. Year. Ever.

Episode Date: January 7, 2022

What was the worst year to be alive on planet Earth?   We make the case for 536 AD, which set off a cascade of catastrophes that is almost too horrible to imagine. A supervolcano. The disappearance of shadows. A failure of bread. Plague rats. Using evidence painstakingly gathered around the world - from Mongolian tree rings to Greenlandic ice cores to Mayan artifacts - we paint a portrait of what scientists and historians think went wrong, and what we think it felt like to be there in real time. (Spoiler: not so hot.)  We hear a hymn for the dead from the ancient kingdom of Axum, the closest we can get to the sound of grief from a millennium and a half ago. The horrors of 536 make us wonder about the parallels and perpendiculars with our own time: does it make you feel any better knowing that your suffering is part of a global crisis? Or does it just make things worse?"Thanks to reporter Ann Gibbons whose Science article "Eruption made 536 ‘the worst year to be alive" got us interested in the first place. In case you want to learn more about 536, here are some other sources: Timothy P. Newfield, “The Climate Downturn of 536-50” in the Palgrave Handbook on Climate HistoryDallas Abbott et al., “What caused terrestrial dust loading and climate downturns between A.D. 533 and 540?”Joel Gunn and Alesio Ciarini (editors), “The A.D. 536 Crisis: A 21st Century Perspective”Antti Arjava, “The Mystery Cloud of 536 CE in the Mediterranean Sources” And for more on the composer Yared, watch Meklit Hadero’s TED talk “The Unexpected Beauty of Everyday Sounds” Credits: This episode was reported by Latif Nasser and Lulu Miller, and produced by Simon Adler.  With sound and music from Simon Adler and Jeremy Bloom. Special Thanks: Thanks to Joel Gunn, Dallas Abbott, Mathias Nordvig, Emma Rigby, Robert Dull, Daniel Yacob, Kay Shelemey, Jacke Phillips, Meklit Hadero, and Joan Aruz. Support Radiolab by becoming a member today at Radiolab.org/donate.  Radiolab is on YouTube! Catch up with new episodes and hear classics from our archive. Plus, find other cool things we did in the past — like miniseries, music videos, short films and animations, behind-the-scenes features, Radiolab live shows, and more. Take a look, explore and subscribe!

Wait, you're listening to Radio Lab from W and Y. Hey, I'm Laptop Nostar, this is Radio Lab. I'm getting all settled, okay. And to kick off this new year, our very first episode of 2022, Jaddon Lulu and I were supposed to have a conversation about what our favorite things were from last year, like books and movies, that kind of thing. Okay.

But I have brought you both here with the rules. I mean, we may do favorite things, but that's not what I'm prepared to do today. Wait, so that was a fail? I prepared to do today. So that was a fail. I prepared my favorite thing. I'm hijacking you both. Ooh, okay. Okay, you ready?

Yeah. Very. So, we are starting a new year. It feels kind of like the last two sort of blur together, and I'm constantly thinking like, which was at worst, 2020 or 2021, but then that took me to a different place, which is like, what was the worst year ever, not in recent memory, but in human history? Like, was there an objectively worst year

to be a person alive on planet Earth? My mind goes to parameter questions. Yeah. When is the boundaries? So maybe let's say the worst year in recorded history. Got it. My mind goes to parameter questions. Yeah. Okay, great. When is the boundaries? So maybe let's say the worst year in recorded history. Got it. And then worst, do you have like an operating definition for that?

Maybe something that like that hit a lot of people in a way that if we were alive then, and we had a choice between living then and living now, we would say, yes, please, 2020 or 2021, please. You are sick, sick mind, Latv. Well, I mean, I admit it's kind of a dark thought to have, but I was thinking about it in a kind of positive way. Like the worst year in human history,

if I can pin that down, I'll at least know that, you know, 2022 is almost certainly not gonna be as bad as that, and then I'll feel better about that. And like whatever's ahead. And whatever's ahead. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Sorry. So fully embracing the suck that is 2020 and 2021, what year would you pit up against it to say this is a worthy adversary? I always think in Pompeii.

The Black Death. Yeah, that's gotta be top five. At least if you're like, if you're just gonna focus on your... You could do 1939. Crusades, it wasn't that the 12th century. Crusades. 1781. Mongolian invasion.

Mm-hmm. Which was actually there, some really good things that came out of so you know, I mean you could say like 1492 from the American perspective. Yes. I recently came across this thing that in 1100 AD the moon disappeared for a lot of the year I think that would be for a lot of the year. It doesn't care. So I think that would be terrifying as either someone who is spiritual or isn't.

Yeah, it's very interesting because you're bringing up a lot of stuff that I'm gonna bring up to. Okay. So the year, the year that I think I wanna make a case that this is the worst year in human history, is 536 AD. 536.

Whoa. OK. All right, what's happening in the world in 536? OK, so just a quick picture of what the world looked like around the 530s. A few hundred million humans on planet Earth, or they're about. The Roman Empire, you know, fully flowered, then fractured into two.

Similar thing had happened in China, it also fractured. It is the classic period of the Mayan civilization in Central America. So these are like societies, like these are real societies, you know, with major cities and sew systems and and music scenes and stuff like that Like it's like we're not quite in the modern world, but we're in like in a world we recommend. Okay, so toilets and toilets and

Loots basically. Yeah Okay, so what happens in 536 is not particularly Clear the leading theory is a volcanic eruption 36 is not particularly clear. The leading theory is a volcanic eruption. This is a singular eruption, or is it a string of them? Almost certainly a string of them, but at least one of them was enormous.

Unclear where this eruption happened exactly, but spewed out ash and sulfates and even tiny bits of glass into the stratosphere where it circulated around the earth. But there's actually, there's another thing that happened, there's kind of an extra twist, which is that I suppose say this one scholar and what she thinks happened was that a few years prior, Haley's comet passed by Earth, and basically whipped us with its tail. And so the debris from that tail entered our atmosphere, broke up in the night sky, and you could actually see it twinkling. Can you imagine if they, if the two things were separate events, but happen on the same day?

That would be crazy. That would be amazing. And or it could have been something completely different that triggered all of this. But this is like best, best guesses. So whether it was the volcanic sort of plume or whether it was the comet debris, it creates this thing they call a dust veil over the earth. And that triggers other strange regional weather patterns including dust storms, which cause even more dust.

So in November and December of 536 in the Chinese city of Nanjing, there's a report from the city that said, quote, yellow dust rained down like snow. It could be scooped up in handfuls. Wow. And that lasts from February 536 to June 537. So a year and a half basically a solid winter. Oh, that's that. That's game of throwing shit right there. Oh. That's that. That's game of throwing shit right there. Yeah, it's basically the coldest decade in the last 2000 years.

And that triggers massive crop failures and mass famine. So in Ireland in 536 and then also in 539, it's written in their annals that they have a quote failure of bread. A similar food shortages are documented in Korea, Japan, in China, it gets so bad by the 540s that in one area north of the Yellow River, seven or eight out of every 10 people died. And because the crops had failed, allegedly,

survivors were forced to eat the corpses of the big and big. Oh my God. Oh my God. One of the places where this hit worst was Scandinavia. 75% of the villages they excavate from around that time, like you can tell that they were abandoned. Basically, it's like all these Nordic people

are like screw up, we're getting out of here, and then they get on their boats, and then they like travel around the world, and they, it's like. All you need now is like an alien invasion, and I don't know. Well, there's, I mean, there is more, another issue with this massive dust veil

that some people have speculated about is like people were not getting a lot of sunlight so they're not creating vitamin D in their bodies and vitamin D among other things helps boost your immune system to fight bacterial infections. And also you can imagine there are all these farms and fields with crops. The plants are dying. The rats in the field and the other animals that are living out there start coming to where the people have, you know,

stores of grain or rice or whatever, and that's near where people are living. So now you have people who are hungry. Weak or immune system? Possibly immune, sort of compromised. Meeting these filthy, desperate animals like rats who are carrying microscopic friends. So I'll let you guess what happens next.

God. A plague, all kinds of sicknesses. All kinds of sicknesses, yes, but especially one. So they call it Justinian's plague. This is 541, so five years later. This plague spreads basically across all of Europe. It's commonly estimated to have killed tens of millions of people. I'm trying to sort of construct a composite reality from all of these things.

I mean, it must have been cold as hell. There's rats and bacteria. Yeah. So, these two geoscientistsists, others and Rapinoe, Rampino, they basically like comb through all of like anything written around that time, all over the world, to try to find like who talked about this and what did they say. And here's some of what they found.

So this is a guy from Italy, states many type person, Cassiadorus Senator, he says, the sun seems to have lost its wanted light and appears of a bluish color. We marvel to see no shadows of our bodies at noon. The moon too, even when its orb is full, is empty of its natural splendor. We've had a spring without mildness and a summer without heat.

Wow. That is bad. Yeah, that's bad. Really. And so vivid, the loss of the shadows, like you feel the cold. Yeah, here's another one that's like this equally vivid, I think. So this is Mesopotamia, so this is a rounding area where Syria is now. A guy named Zacharias of My mightoline probably pronouncing that wrong quote the winter was a severe one so much so that from the large and unwanted quantity of snow the birds perished

There was distress among men from the evil things. Oh my gosh What do you think the evil things means there? I don't know. I just left that in there because I did not know what that meant. And I was like, ooh, that's really dark and sinister. Wow. But everybody, the entire globe is suffering through a 15 month winter.

Unclear if it's the whole globe, but much of the Northern hemisphere for sure. But in my in history, there's this period, so this is the classic period of my in history. Then there's this little mini period that they call the classic period hiatus. And they have the my in people would make these special decorative stone pillars to like mark history and what is going on in history at that time. Basically, they just pause making them. What do you think the, okay, we kind of talked about what it felt like temperature-wise, but like, what do you think the world sounded like during these years or this year? Well, I guess with the birds dying, probably quieter,

with the birds dying, probably quieter. Yeah, but what's left is, I don't know, I imagine, like walking on dried grass, like that kind of sound maybe, like you know, the little scurrying of the rat feet over the fallow field or whatever. And then when probably picks up, if you don't have trees lush plants to break it, right? You probably get like... Do you know what I keep thinking about is any singular human in this moment would be

thinking about their own sorry state and their family and maybe their village. But that would be the sort of circumference of their awareness. They had no big picture. So like. I doubt anybody had a big picture on it. Right, but I mean, we can see that it was a global catastrophe. And we see that about our own moment in a way that they couldn't. So I wonder if it would have felt like the worst year ever. So it's funny to think that like the awareness of the whole magnifies the misery and like. Or the awareness of the whole maybe makes you feel less lonely

about it. Yeah. That's just you. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I wondered if there was someone who just like got on a horse and was like, I'm going to ride until like I'm out of it. I get the sun back. Yeah. Just got riding. I never got sun back and then just get riding and never get it back. Out of the cold and then like never gets there. Yeah, I guess what I keep thinking about suddenly is, given that I'm an old man, now it's my sort of inherited birth rate to complain about young people, there's such a fixation on mental health amongst, amongst kids, right? Yeah, I think, thank God, that's amazing. But at the same time, I think while your life's just so great, you know, kids, right? And I think, thank God, that's amazing. But at the same time, I think while your life's

just so great, you know what I mean? But then I think, does it feel great? Probably doesn't. Like objectively, their lives are so much more comfortable than a life would have been in 536. But maybe by virtue of the expanded awareness that we all carry, Things don't feel good. You know, I guess that's what I was thinking about.

I was like, what if we endured 536 now, right? Like what if a comment and a volcano blew up? Can you imagine the wall, wall CNN and the tweeting and the retweeting and the constant like sharing of misery? It must feel like it would feel like misery amplified in a way that it probably hasn't at any other time. But that but but the sharing yes, there is misery amplified and that but like think about when the Italians

made that video for us do you remember that? This little Master's in a bottle of like just a little message. I'm sharing a bottle of like, take it seriously, learn from us, stay inside for a couple of weeks. It felt like that was a moment where the cross planetary awareness

allowed our best sides to try to come out. And let's work together. And let's work together. And like the kind of watching how different leaders approach it and then being able to just look back and see what works and then take strategies and make mistakes and learn and the sharing and the solidarity allowed us to way more quickly collaborate. I mean, that's yeah, that is true. But like, okay, like think back to 536, right? Probably most people alive on planet Earth at the time

believe that what was happening, the horrors that were befalling them, were coming from above. They were an act of God or gods. And then now, what's going on? So much of what's going on, it feels like it's happening because of us. Like, something we're doing to ourselves and to each other. And sort of whether it is or not, like it's like lab leak or China virus

or South Africa variant or this person's not wearing a mask or that person's didn't get a booster or whatever it is. And as much as the solidarity and stuff, like that stuff also gets amplified on Twitter. I don't know, so it's like as much as you have the, we're all in this together stuff, you also have the like, it's all this person's fault. Let's skip this person.

Yeah, that's true. I don't know. I'm big on the solidarity in the long run, making it better. And it just seems like with all of that, I mean, it's just like I'm officially stopping bitching about 20, 20. Like I'm done.

But does it make, okay, okay, that's sort of like, that's what I was curious about. Does this, just knowing that people in 536, I mean, it's like, does it make you feel better about the last two years to know that in 536, that was a watch force here? It doesn't make me better so much, as it makes me think, oh, like, there are more floors to fall through here.

Like, we could fall, we have longer to fall. Like, I don't know if that makes me feel better to know that, but it definitely makes me not feel worse. Okay. Because I'm saving worse feelings for when it and when it does get worse. That's fair. I just wanted to say what I, what you have left me with about knowing about that year,

I just feel grateful I can go see my shadow. And like that's what I'm going to take the year ahead. That's what I'm going to take into the year ahead is like, well, if I can see my shadow, that means there's enough sun to just enjoy the basic warmth of that. And there's ground beneath me that is not lava. Yeah. That's not lava. So going into the next year, at least we've got shadows and bread and ground to stand on. Yeah.

Do you guys remember my question? That was last year. I know. Old time. Yeah. But do you remember when I got a little hung up on? Music. Or year. I know. I know. Hold on. But do you remember when I got a little hung up on? Music. You were excited to see if it's exciting.

So before we leave you, one more thing, because after a lot of hit us with the horrors of that year, I was left with this question that just kept eating at me. And so a little while later, I called them both back up to add just one last little post card from the year 536. Yeah. What was your question specifically? Did the misery create a new genre? My question was really just what was music like then? What kind of music were people making and hearing that would have carried them through? What did it actually sound like? So I did a little digging and I found someone who had a pretty interesting answer to that question, at least for one corner of the world.

Should I call you Cantor Sayum? No, Mogus. No, it's not Mogus, Mogus. Mogus. So Mogus Seyum, he is a Cantor in the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, lives in Virginia now, but he grew up in Ethiopia, and some of the musical traditions of his church songs he sings literally every week. He says, come from right around the 536 time in what was then the kingdom of axum. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Only by the way.

And in fact, he told me about one particular guy from the area, you know, the Dino's area, the area, the history. Saint Yara, who, according to tradition, was the person writing all this music. One thousand six hundred years ago, you know, this is coming. Now, we don't know the extent to which the dust veil of 536 affected this area. And there is debate over the historical person Yared. But according to Mogus' tradition, it was right around the year 536 that Yared composed a brand new book of hymns called Moasit. Yeah, and what are the songs in that book about?

Moasit, Moasit is when somebody dies. He sings songs of Moasit. It's like a book of its songs for the dead. Yeah. Could you sing me just a little bit so I could hear? Oh I know it's impossible to know exactly how the chronology of these songs line up with the year 536, and also even how much of Yard's story is real or apocryphal. But what does seem likely is that if you were to walk into a church in Ethiopia about 1500 years ago and you were mourning someone. This is the kind of music that may be sung to you to honor that loss. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow-bye. This episode was produced by Simon Adler with sound and music from Simon Adler and Jeremy Bloom.

Special thanks to Dallas Abbott, Matthias Nordwig, Joel Gunn, and reporter Anne Gibbons, whose article in science on 536 got me interested in this in the first place. Thanks also to Daniel Jacob, K. Shalame, Jackie Phillips, and McLeat Hadero, who is a fabulous singer-songwriter with a deep connection to St. Yarred. I highly recommend you go check out her music that's McLeat Hadero. If by the way you want to actually hear the conversation that Lulu and Jed and I were supposed to have about our favorite things from the last year. Well, that is actually going up right after this to our lab members only feed.

The lab. And it's a fun conversation. I was so excited to share my little finds of the year with you. So if you do want to hear it, just join the lab. Head over to radiolab.org, flash the lab to sign up. Check it out, see if it's for you, radialab.org, flash the lab. Thank you for listening. This is radialab more light, non-catastrophic stories coming up from us soon and all through

the next year, whatever it might bring. Hi, this is Lauren Bartram, calling from San Diego, California. and all through the next year, whatever it may bring. Hi, this is Lauren Bartram, calling from San Diego, California. Radio Lab is supported and part by the Alfred Peace Lone Foundation, enhancing public understanding of science and technology in the modern world. More information about Sloan at www.Sloan.org Science reporting on Radio Lab is supported in part by Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation initiative dedicated to engaging everyone with the process of science. Radio Lab was created by Chad Ubumrod and is edited by Soren Wheeler.

Lulu Miller and Lahtifnossir are co-hosts Susie Lektinberg is our executive producer, and Dylan Keef is our director of sound design. Our stuff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Brestler, Rachel Kusik, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Bascutietes, Sindeniana Sombundam, Matt Kilte, Annie McEwan, Alex Niesen, Saurar Kari, Aryan Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster.

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