How would you like to be thrown into a box with no light, food or cheesets? For a whole year, with a 90% chance of catching bubonic plague, that will give you just a taste of what 536 ADU is like. You like sun? That big glowy thing that brings you joy and laughter? You a fan? Well, what if it just wasn't there? Or rather, was there, but, quote, gave forth its light without brightness, like the moon, during the whole year. Unquote. That's a quote from this dude named Porcupine, I mean, Procopius, who was a historian in the Byzantine Empire. Keep in mind that this dude was rich as a Malaysian donkey, so if one of the Hoi Di Toi Di Rich people was talking about how bad it is, then you know it sucks. So yeah, during the year 536, the sun just kind of decided to shut itself off. The dimness of the sun was caused by a fog, but not just any fog. This fog hung around for a full 18 months. That's because it wasn't made out of normal fog stuff. It was made out of volcano gunk, the result of a super volcano exploding in Iceland. But if only the worst thing about 536 was the darkness, that would be nice. His holy crap, it gets worse. Turns out that when the lights go off on Earth, everything about society as a whole just seems to completely crumble. It's time for an intense science lesson. Ever heard of photosynthesis? Plants take light, turn it into food? Yeah, well it appears that when you remove half of that equation, it doesn't work at all. So when essentially every country in Europe experienced a giant famine at the same time, it wasn't what you would call a good time. Allow me to draw a flow chart to demonstrate the situation. A volcano explodes, but like a big volcano. Then the world gets very dark, then because plants can't grow in the dark world, they don't grow. People can't eat food, so they become weak and skinny. Then the plague shreds population to part. That's right. Enter from stage left, the Justinian plague, the stars aligned, and the Justinian plague managed to kill 5 million people in Europe. Wait, hold on, I'm getting something from my headset. Oh, 50 million people. Yeah, so basically what happened is people would die from the plague, then cities would fill full of bodies. So every day people had to move the bodies out of the cities. But it turns out that touching plague, riddled dead bodies, isn't too good for your health. I know, right? Who could have guessed? So then the healthy people who move the bodies out of the cities would become sick, leaving to more death and disease. This all led to the plague being spread insanely faster in Europe, hence the 50 million casualties. That's all well and good, but I know what you're thinking. Yep, I know exactly the question on your mind right now. What about the Moshe civilization of Peru? How were those little guys doing? Well, I am so glad you asked, because they actually somehow survived everything that happened during 536. Maybe actually, unfortunately, because the next gosh darned 60 years were what could be described as a living hell. First, they were hit by 30 years of intense rain and flooding, which seems bad, but then came the 30 years of intense drought. Just back to back in the St. Environmental Catashafies. There's a depressingly hilarious theory that all that insane weather resulted in then coming to the conclusion that our religion says that if you sacrifice to the gods regularly, then the weather will stay stable, right? Oh yeah, of course. So the fuck you call this? So that's nice. Yeah, they didn't last much longer after that. Anyway, back to the living hell. While all this was happening, the weather was freaking out everywhere in the world. Like in China, where it started to rain a yellow colored ash. It was said you could reach down and scoop it up with your hands. I probably don't need to tell you that this is not ideal for the environment. The ash essentially smothered all the farmland to death. Need I remind you that the volcano had gone off in Iceland, so the fact that this affected China is pretty insane, especially since Iceland is 7773 kilometers away from China. Uh, I mean, 4,830 miles. That's a freaking large distance. It shows just how far the ash covered the entire earth. It was indistinguently catastrophic. In the years to come, things proceeded to continue getting completely messed up. For one thing, Mother Nature just decided screw you guys in particular and smacked everyone with two more volcanic eruptions. After all that ash being thrown in its face and the sun being blocked out so much during that time, in the years following, there occurred what became known as the Little Antique Ice Age, which is exactly how it sounds. A mini ice age that flung snow at even tropical locations around the world. Basically cooling everyone down a bunch. As you might be able to predict when the ice age occurred, people did exactly what they did best of the time. That's right, they died in the millions. Time to bust out the old flow chart again. Giant volcanic eruption, two more volcanic eruptions, the sun gets blocked out, the earth cools, and farmers can't grow food. So then, people can't eat food, people get weak, and the plague returns. Welcome to part 2 of the plague. Although it's not as much of a plague as it is an amalgamation of hundreds of different viruses that the now small and weak humans could easily be slapped with. These diseases spread insanely fast back then, especially during the ice age. The thing about disease is that it's commonly carried on the backs of rats. And the thing about rats is that they don't like the cold very much, so that they would wriggle and cram their ways indoors, seeking some kind of warmth. And guess what's warm inside of houses? Jesus Christ, I'm happy to live in the 21st century. Alright, watch this video now.