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This illustration depicts the sweating sickness, which remains mysterious to this day[/caption]
Thousands of Brits are believed to have been struck down and ultimately wiped out by this mysterious disease – and we’re still not exactly sure why.
Victims of the sickness would usually become suddenly ill, and then be dead within hours.
You’d go from feeling a bit cold and dizzy, before quickly descending into a sweaty delirium – and then either recovering, or popping your clogs. Sounds miserable, but that’s the 1400s for you.
Wolf Hall fans might recall (spoilers…) that Thomas Cromwell’s wife and two daughters were offed by the disease. Anne Boleyn is also believed to have survived it, although she didn’t exactly have a happy ending.
Thomas Cromwell’s wife and two daughters are believed to have died due to sweating sickness – an event that was re-enacted in the Wolf Hall TV series[/caption]
And making the event all the more bizarre, a definitive cause for sweating sickness still hasn’t been found.
St Lucia’s Flood
On December 13/14 in 1287, an enormous storm tide led to one of the largest floods known to history.
Hundreds of people were killed during the horrifying event also called the “Great Storm”.
As many as 180 people died in the village of Hickling, Norfolk, with water reported to have risen a foot above the Priory Church’s high altar.
A ‘great storm’ caused devastating flooding in England, killing hundreds of people[/caption]
Norfolk’s Hickling village was especially effected with as many as 180 fatalities[/caption]
But Brits didn’t have it nearly as bad as the Netherlands and Germany, where death tolls are estimated to be between 50,000 and 80,000.
London tornado
When you count the fires, plagues, and a smattering of Viking sackings, London has had a pretty bad lot. That’s before you chuck in a tornado.
It turns out that England‘s earliest reported (and possibly strongest) tornado took place in 1091, in the heart of our capital city.
The aptly named London Tornado of 1091 struck on Friday, October 17 and badly damaged the church of St Mary-le-Bow (which is located on London’s Cheapside).
The newer St Mary-le-Bow, which was designed by Sir Christopher Wren following the Great Fire of London[/caption]
Tornadoes are usually associated with central USA – and not Britain’s capital city[/caption]
Several churches were demolished along with over 600 mostly wooden houses. This wasn’t the first or last time London would learn of the perils of using wood as a building material.
The tornado is believed to have rated around F4 on the Fujita scale, which makes it “devastating”. Wind speeds may have reached 213mph.
Chronicling the mad event, William of Malmesbury described it as “a great spectacle for those watching from afar, but a terrifying experience for those standing near”. That’s tornadoes alright.
Thankfully out of a population of 18,000, there are just two known fatalities.
A timeline of life on Earth
The history of the planet in years…
- 4.6 billion years ago – the origin of Earth
- 3.8 billion years ago – first life appears on Earth
- 2.1 billion years ago – lifeforms made up of multiple cells evolve
- 1.5 billion years ago – eukaryotes, which are cells that contain a nucleus inside of their membranes, emerge
- 550 million years ago – first arthropods evolve
- 530 million years ago – first fish appear
- 470 million years ago – first land plants appear
- 380 million years ago – forests emerge on Earth
- 370 million years ago – first amphibians emerge from the water onto land
- 320 million years ago – earliest reptiles evolve
- 230 million years ago – dinosaurs evolve
- 200 million years ago – mammals appear
- 150 million years ago – earliest birds evolve
- 130 million years ago – first flowering plants
- 100 million years ago – earliest bees
- 55 million years ago – hares and rabbits appear
- 30 million years ago – first cats evolve
- 20 million years ago – great apes evolve
- 7 million years ago –first human ancestors appear
- 2 million years ago – Homo erectus appears
- 300,000 years ago – Homo sapiens evolves
- 50,000 years ago – Eurasia and Oceania colonised
- 40,000 years ago – Neandethal extinction
Volcanic winter
If you thought that was bad, consider yourself lucky you weren’t around 1,500 years ago. Summer holidays were cancelled (as was a lot of human life, which is much worse).
A volcanic winter said to have been caused by multiple eruptions cooled the atmosphere for years – causing a big drop in temperatures across Europe, including the UK.
The problem for normal people is that the volcanic winter of 536 wasn’t an isolated catastrophe.
Its devastating crop failures coincided with the Plague of Justinian and general famine.
The volcanic winter has been linked to a series of suspected eruptions[/caption]
WHAT IS THE PLAGUE?
Here's what you need to know about the deadly infection…
- Plague is a serious and often deadly bacterial infection caused by bacteria called Yersinia pestis
- Humans can be infected with the plague from flea bites and rats were responsible for spreading a lot of plague ridden fleas around Europe
- People can also infect one another so plague sufferers must be isolated
- Most people have heard of the bubonic plague but there are actually lots of different names for plague depending on which area of the human body is infected
- Bubonic plague infects the lymph nodes, pneumonic plague infects the lungs and septicemic plague infects the blood
- Symptoms of bubonic plague include: fever, chills, seizures and swelling at the site of the flea bite
- 50% of people who have bubonic plague die if it’s not treated with antibiotics
- There have been three major bubonic plague outbreaks in history with the most well known one reffered to as the Black Death
- The first bubonic plague outbreak is called the Justinian Plague, named after a Roman emperor called Justinian I
- It started in 541 AD and spread across the Mediterranean, killing 25 million people
- The second major outbreak was the Black Death, which originated in China in 1334
- It swept across the globe and killed nearly 60% of Europe’s human population
- The third outbreak is often called the Modern Plague and it also began in China in the 1860s
- It reached Hong Kong in 1894 and spread around the world for the next 20 years, killing about 10 million people
Historians reckon that the events collectively caused millions of deaths across Europe during the period.
In fact, historian Michael McCormick famously declared 536 “the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year”.
