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The 1500-Year-Old Baffling Mystery Cracked At Last.
When the Sky Darkened beyond the Sun
Millennia ago, the world witnessed a strange and foreboding phenomenon in ancient accounts everywhere. Crops were destroyed, weather cooled, and the sun didn’t rise on the horizon. Science has cracked this 1,500-year-old mystery a chilling experience that once plunged the world into darkness during a crisis.
The Historical Clues: A “Year Without a Summer”
Something peculiar happened in 536 AD. Byzantine historian Procopius wrote of a “sun that shed no light,” day as dull and shadows disappearing. Throughout Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, there was widespread famine, dead crops, strange weather, and plague.
The Irish Annals documented “a failure of bread” and Chinese annals documented “summer frosts and snow.” Tree rings’ documentation of a natural history of climate documented stunted growth in 536 and the years following. It was not local. It was worldwide.
So what might explain such a short but long-lasting absence of the sun?
A Mysterious Climate Catastrophe
Theorists for centuries had long speculated how it was accomplished. An event in the skies? A comet? A secret revolution of Earth’s spin?
