Introducing WHAT THE FACT with Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy, a new Rewind podcast!
Twisted Tales with Heidi Wong
In this debut episode of 'What The Fact,' hosts Connor Tomlinson and Carter Roy explore three of the most catastrophic years in human histor
Key takeaways
- The 1816 'Year Without a Summer' was triggered by the massive eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia.
- The volcanic winter of 1816 directly inspired the creation of literary classics like Frankenstein and Dracula.
Main topics
- Mount Tambora eruption
- The Black Death
Notable quotes
The wildest stuff is real, and the real stuff is wilder than you think.
Conclusion
A compelling look at how global tragedies act as catalysts for profoun
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:01) I'm Connor Tomlinson from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing, and I've been waiting my whole life for a Speaker 4 (0:07) show like this one. And I'm Carter Roy, and this is What the Fact. Three facts a week, each with the whole story behind it. The history class you actually wished you had in school. New episodes every Wednesday. Follow What Speaker 3 (0:20) the Fact wherever you listen or subscribe on YouTube at What the Fact Pod. Speaker 3 (0:27) I have a question for you. Did you know the most feared pirate in the Atlantic, the man who terrorized an entire ocean, may never have actually killed anyone? Or that the most democratic society in the early 1700s was on a pirate ship? Hi, I'm Connor Tomlinson. You might know me from Love on the Spectrum. History is my thing. Has been my whole Speaker 4 (0:52) life. And I'm Carter Roy. Every week on What the Fact. We take the most unbelievable true things in history and tell you the whole story behind them. The history lesson you wished you'd had in high school. Carter sets the scene. Connor brings the facts, the deep cuts, and the occasional British accent. Speaker 3 (1:09) The wildest stuff is real, and trust me, it is a wild ride. New episodes every Wednesday. We have an episode to share with you now. If you love it, follow What The Fact on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. or subscribe on YouTube at WhatTheFactPod. This is Rewind. I could just imagine two dinosaurs looking at each other going, you know, it just don't get no better than this. And one of those says, yeah. And then, Speaker 4 (1:45) oh no. Speaker 3 (1:49) A giant meteorite strikes the earth. Goodbye dinosaurs. Speaker 4 (2:05) Hi, and welcome to What the Fact, the show that reveals the wildest true facts ever recorded and tells you the whole story behind them. Hi, I'm Connor, Speaker 3 (2:14) and I'm here to bring the charm and humor and maybe a British accent or two to your history Speaker 4 (2:20) lesson. And I am Carter Roy. I will be your guide through history. What happened, how it happened, and why it happened. Follow Speaker 3 (2:28) wherever you get your podcasts and leave a review to help us build this community. Speaker 4 (2:33) So today we have three years, three very real stories and one question, which one was actually the worst. Carter, has Speaker 3 (2:42) anything terrible ever happened in your life? And then something unexpectedly good came of it. Speaker 4 (2:49) Yeah, I think so. You know, actually the pandemic, I had to be alone at home all the time and I ended up doing a lot of art because I had to kill time. So like now I. Ended up being like a visual artist. And I didn't even know I could really do that until the pandemic happened. How about you? Me? I actually started watching Speaker 3 (3:09) more shows to help pass the time. And honestly, it made me rethink the fantasy genre altogether. Like how some things that could have happened in the middle ages could happen in modern day. Yeah. Speaker 4 (3:24) Hidden, you know? Totally. So it made you rethink everything a little bit. Yeah. Very cool. Well, that is actually the theme of everything we are covering. Catastrophe makes things. So today we have three years for you, three years from human history that you absolutely did not want to be alive for. At the very end, you and I will vote on which was actually the worst. Okay, Connor, first reaction. How bad do you think this is about to get? Oh, I think it's going to get pretty, pretty, pretty Speaker 3 (3:54) bad. It is going to get pretty bad. Speaker 3 (3:59) Do you know which year a volcano canceled summer, caused a global famine, and also gave us Frankenstein and the bicycle? That year was 1816, also known as the year without a summer. It's amazing. It's fascinating. Like how something terrible can lead to something good in the end. Speaker 4 (4:20) Yeah. And a year without a summer. That just seems like seasons are such a part of life. We expect. It's crazy to think of just like a season not happening. Can you imagine life without a summer? I can imagine how terrible it would be, how miserable everyone would be. Oh my God, people would be not happy. Okay, so the year is 1816. Europe should be having the best year it's had in a generation. Napoleon had just been defeated at Waterloo, ending over 20 years of war. Finally! Yes! Yes! All anyone wants to do is have a normal summer. Exactly. But what happens? No summer. 1816, no summer. No summer. In New England, it snows in June? Yeah. Yeah. Crazy. Crazy enough to bury new crops and kill birds right where they sit. That's so sad. So sad. Can you imagine looking out and just seeing dead frozen birds? In July, the hard frost turns the corn black. The people who lived through it called 1816, 1800, and froze to death. I guess they had some kind of sense of humor back then and trying to make the best out of a bad thing. In Europe, grain rotted from Switzerland to Ireland. Bread prices doubled and doubled again. There were food riots across France, Belgium, Switzerland. People were eating bread cut with sawdust. Oh, Speaker 3 (5:40) that Speaker 4 (5:40) doesn't Speaker 3 (5:41) sound appetizing. I've got three things to say about that. Hard to bite, difficult to chew, and impossible to swallow. You Speaker 4 (5:50) won't see me eating bread with sautés, no. Okay, in Switzerland, families were boiling weeds and eating the family cat. Oh, Speaker 3 (6:00) that's disgusting. I understand you get resourceful in a famine, but no way would I ever eat my pet, even if I was super hungry. Yeah, Speaker 4 (6:09) that shows you just how bad it was. And this was not just a European problem. It was a planet problem. In China, the cold wrecked the rice harvest. The Yangtze Valley flooded. In Yunnan province, famine lasted three full years. In India, the monsoon failed entirely. So many historians believe a new strain of cholera emerged from that broken weather in the Bay of Bengal, the first truly global pandemic. Tens of millions of people dead over the following century. I thought dyspepsia was bad. Every bit of it traces back to one mountain. Okay, before I tell you which one, what's your guess? Krakatoa, maybe? That's what I would have guessed. That's the only one I know. But no, Speaker 3 (6:52) it was Tambora. It erupted in Indonesia. Its ash and smoke carried miles across the world. Miles. It was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history. True story. I was actually in Sicily. I saw Mount Etna from a distance, and I happened to learn from my brother. that Mount Etna was used in filming Star Wars Episode III, Revenge of the Sith. That scene where Anakin and Obi-Wan were fighting on Mustafar, right where they were grappling, there was a huge blast of lava. That was Mount Etna Speaker 4 (7:27) erupting. Amazing. Did they have the real Mount Etna in the background and then they, yeah, made it look like it was erupting? Well, this was about as bad as it gets. It was April 10th, 1815. And as you said, Tambora in the island of Zimbabwe, what is now Indonesia, detonates the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history and directly killed roughly 10,000 people and eventually 80 to 90,000 more. The blasters heard 1,600 miles away, which I can't even really comprehend that. How far away do you think the loudest you could hear? Speaker 3 (8:00) Probably about... Well, if the explosion was loud enough, maybe 10,000 miles or more. Or I mean, I thought Pompeii's destruction by Mount Vesuvius was bad. Yeah, this is bad. Speaker 4 (8:13) Okay, so people 1,600 miles away thought it was cannon fire, like a battle just over the horizon. And eruptions are measured on the VEI scale, the Volcanic Explosivity Index. Talk about an on-the-nose name. Every step is roughly 10 times bigger than last. So, well... Yeah. It's crazy. Crazy. Okay. So Mount St. Helens in 1980, that's a VEI 5. Krakatoa, 1883, a VEI 6. Tambora was a VEI 7. So it'd be a hundred times bigger than Mount St. Helens. And like, I was alive when Mount St. Helens erupted. I was in Montana and like, it was like, you know, we had ash, it changed life. You know, this is, you're Speaker 3 (8:56) going Speaker 4 (8:56) to find this fascinating Speaker 3 (8:57) Carter, but did you know volcanic ash is actually good for plant growth? I mean, if it mixes with soil, some pretty unique plants grow from it. I know. Cause I was, I was actually in Hawaii once I saw exotic Speaker 4 (9:12) plants, stuff you would never see back here in the mainland. And right. All that volcanic ash makes it so fertile. And yeah, Mount St. Allen's when it. As a kid, I couldn't believe it was one of those things you're like, I didn't know this actually happened. Volcanoes exploding. And I'm imagining it like the, the Timbora being that loud. It almost be like Helms deep, you know, in the, the Uruk-hai are coming and there's that like, Oh Speaker 3 (9:35) yeah. The fog, they were putting fire pots into a drain at the base of the wall. Speaker 4 (9:39) Yes. And then it went and you're like, what? Like nobody'd ever seen anything like this before. And that berserker took his own life just to blow the wall. I remember they're like, hit him, hit him. Except for the volcano. Speaker 3 (9:51) Arrow Speaker 4 (9:51) after arrow, Legolas shot, and not one could bring down that Uruk. No. Well, that's basically what Krakatoa was. And then Tambora was 10 times that. And 100 times Mount St. Helens. Possibly the loudest sound recorded