1500 years ago the earth was rocked by a natural catastrophe. The sky went black for two years causing massive famine, drought and disease. New nations and religions emerged and the old order was swept away. Following over four years of research and a life-threatening expedition to Krakatoa, this episode uncovers the cause of this global disaster that wiped millions of people from the face of the earth. (Part 2: How the World Changed examines the new world order which emerged from environmental chaos.)
In 535 AD, nature literally came to standstill. Winter gripped the earth for two years. Startling new evidence shows that trees all over the world – from Ireland to Siberia, California to Finland – stopped growing during the mid-sixth century. Eyewitness accounts describe what we might now call a ‘nuclear winter.’ According to the Syrian Bishop, John of Ephesus “The sun became dark …Each day it shone for about four hours, and still this light was only a feeble shadow.” An ancient chronicle from Southern China states that: “Yellow dust rained like snow. It could be scooped up in handfuls.” Famine and plague followed, killing millions and altering the course of history.
What caused this climatic catastrophe? Did an asteroid or meteorite hit the earth or was there a massive volcanic eruption? Vital clues lie in ice core samples from Greenland. These detect changes in the environment over thousands of years.
Author and historian David Keys consulted over 80 experts on drought, famine, floods, cosmic and ecological disasters, epidemics and ancient wars during more than four years of research on the project. This unique story of scientific detection is based on Keys’ book Catastrophe: an investigation into the Origin of the Modern World. “The mid-sixth century catastrophe was the most important date in the history of the past 2,000 years,” says Keys. “It really did lay the foundations of the world we live in today.”