This was also the same year that Prohibition was ratified, and that didn't work out for anyone. As food stores emptied and prices skyrocketed, famine set in, as even basics like wheat and salt were impossible to get. "It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year," said the medieval historian Michael McCormick in Science. 1, the Post reported. 2020 Was The Deadliest Year In U.S. History. While that was going on in the New World, something else was going on in the Old: Martin Luther was busy breaking Christianity. The flu killed more people than World War I, which was being fought in Europe at the time. Let's talk about the one that happened very, very quickly first: the complete decimation of the Aztecs. If someone asked you what the worst year in human history was, what would you guess? Entire Jewish communities were destroyed by rampaging, violent mobs. By Nicky Blackburn. It's impossible to be consistent that long, so it had its good and bad years. Riots broke out in more than 100 cities, and politics was a mess. As if that wasn't enough, 2020 also brought massive wildfires in Australia and the U.S., disastrous floods in Indonesia, and locust swarms in East Africa, making the year seem almost reminiscent of biblical times. But even with all of that, can we truly say 2020-2021 was the worst period humans have had to endure? Suffering from time to time, on an individual or regional level is a fact of life most people take as a given. Not quite. Here are five worst years in the history of mankind. As this happened, there were agreements to increase bombing runs, and fighting pretty much spread worldwide (via Historic UK). The 6 th century was a pretty grim time to be alive, even if you were lucky enough to have been born into royalty. When Hernán Cortés left Cuba, it was 1519 and he was heading into Mexico to explore and — he hoped — colonize the Aztec. We’re on pace for that right now as the 10-year yield has moved up to 1.30% and US bonds are down 1.6% year-to-date. Could the worst year in history have been mired in a global pandemic, experiencing quickened climate change, ravaging explosions, and people fighting for food and goods at the grocer? A bad year, indeed. From the years of 1347 to 1351, the Black Death caused by plague killed off almost 200 million around the world. As with WWI, any year between 1939 and 1945 during WWII merits a place on this list. It was two years prior, says History, when a particularly deadly strain of bacteria emerged in Mongolia. The pandemic has since killed over three million people worldwide. According to The Ohio State University, it was Ptolemy I Soter who founded the Royal Library of Alexandra in Egypt around 283 BC. The Summer of Love refers to 1967 and the embrace of the hippie culture, says The Guardian. . And that was only the start of what some have referred to as the Dark Ages, which also included another catastrophic event between 541 and 543 AD: The Justinian plague. It has to be pointed out that when compared with bubonic plagues and mass genocides, 2020-2021's COVID-19 pandemic actually seems much tamer. Oops. Just what happened to the library is still debated, but the first person who usually gets the blame is Julius Caesar. 1848's heated rebellions amounted to a downright miserable year of largely pointless violence. 1347 CE was pretty bad. Desegregation protests and the Orangeburg massacre, which left three dead and dozens wounded after a confrontation between black citizens and police. Last year was the worst in history for cord-cutting, according to a new analysis out Tuesday from MoffettNathanson. When the Black Death caused by plague killed off almost 200 million around the globe involved. International Arrivals before it could really gain momentum, but the single year! 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