In this episode of History 10s, we learn about 10 times in which weather changed world history.
Check out the show on ITunes by clicking here: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-history-10s/id1494513160
Climate change helped trigger one of the most famous revolutions in world history. An electrical storm played a role in bringing down a zeppelin. A deadly cyclone helped create a new nation, and a massive typhoon helped in saving a nation. Andrew tells all these stories, and more, in episode 3.
10. Two typhoons, known as Kamikazes, stopped the Mongol invasions of Japan
In the 13th century, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Kublai Khan, has taken over the throne of the Mongol Empire and with China conquered, he turns his attention towards Japan. After Japan refuses to just roll over and bow to Kublai, he assembles a massive force and launches an invasion in 1274. After a series of battles, the Mongols are initially successful, but they decide to retreat back to their ships for safety in case the Japanese attack with reinforcements. As they sit in their ships, a massive typhoon hits. Hundreds of ships were sunk and thousands of Mongol troops were drowned. The Mongols are forced to limp home.
In 1281, Kublai Khan tries again with an even more massive force. This time, they run into the problem of the Japanese having built massive sea walls in the 7 years the Mongols were gone. The Mongols are finally able to land in August of 1281, but then another typhoon strikes. Once again, the Mongols are devastated and are forced to go home. Japan was never attacked again by the Mongols. These two typhoons, these massive storms that killed thousands of men and saved Japan from Mongol conquest, are known today as “KAMIKAZES”, meaning “Divine Wind.”
9. The harsh Russian winter has helped make Russia almost impossible to invade and conquer
Outside of Antarctica, Russia probably has the worst winter conditions on the planet, with huge amounts of snow, wind, and cold. Some places of Russia get colder than the surface of Mars during the worst winters. As a result of this, weather has played a key advantage for Russian defenders over the centuries. There’s actually a term for it…GENERAL WINTER.
Three examples of how the Russian winter served as a great defense tool for the Russian people against foreign invaders…
- King Charles XII of Sweden tried an invasion of Russia in 1708 While his initial invasion was successful, the winter of 1708-1709 was the worst winter in the history of the 18th century, and it devastated his army. By the time the warm weather returned in the spring of 1709…only 19,000 of his 35,000 men were left. The rest had frozen to death. The remainder of his army was smashed by the Russian forces.
- Napoleon, the great French emperor, decided to invade Russia in 1812 with his “Grande Armee” of 600,000 men. By the time Napoleon won the battle of Borodino and captured Moscow, the Russians had already burned down Moscow as part of scorched-earth policy, and now Napoleon found himself without supplies or food or shelter…and the Russian winter was coming. With no choice, Napoleon had to turn back towards France…and it was on the roads back to France that the winter came…and SMASHED his army. Only 100,000 of Napoleon’s men survived, and it ruined Napoleon
- Hitler attacked Russia in June of 1941 with 3 million men in Operation Barbarossa, the largest military offensive in world history. But the Russians fought valiantly, and by December 6th, 1941, the Germans found themselves still short of Moscow and dealing with temperatures colder than 60 below zero. The Germans would eventually have to pull back after a series of Russian attacks in the cold and would never come close to Moscow again. It marked the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany.
8. Cold weather was the main reason the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded
The space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after takeoff on January 28, 1986. 7 astronauts, including a schoolteacher from New Hampshire who was supposed to be the first teacher in space (Christa McAuliffe), were killed.
On the night of the 27th and the morning of the 28th of January, in Cape Canaveral, Florida where the space shuttle launches take place…the temperature dropped all the way down to 26 degrees. With the temperature being so low, it created a serious equipment problem that involved a component on the shuttle called an O-Ring, which helps to keep hydrogen fuel properly contained in the rocket boosters. The problem is that the O-Rings stopped working properly below 50 degrees.
There are videos you can look at online today that show grey smoke escaping from the side of the rocket booster right as the shuttle lifts off. Another picture online exists showing a plume of hot gas shooting out the side of the booster 58 seconds into takeoff. 6 seconds later, 64 seconds into the flight, a leak begins in the liquid hydrogen tank, and finally at 73 seconds into the flight, the space shuttle…now essentially a bomb…detonates…and takes all 7 lives with it.
7. North Atlantic storms destroyed the once-mighty Spanish Armada in 1588
In 1588, the King of Spain (Philip II), orders the Spanish Armada of 130 ships to invade England in an attempt overthrow Queen Elizabeth I. A series of battles were fought against the British Navy as a result, and the Armada was forced to turn north and sail up along the east coast of England, possibly to a find a place to land and actually conduct the invasion. But the British didn’t allow this to happen. They followed the Armada and successfully blocked them from reaching the British mainland. With no other options, the Armada was forced to retreat to Spain, but they had to do so by going all the way around Scotland and Ireland and come back to Spain that way.
Unfortunately for the Spanish, a series of massive storms struck the Armada after they rounded Scotland and were heading past Ireland. Many of these ships were dashed against the rocks of Scotland and Ireland, crushing and drowning thousands of men and destroying dozens of ships.
In the end, of the 130 ships and 24,000 men that had left the shores of Spanish territory to attack England, only 67 ships and less than 10,000 men came back. The defeat was colossal for the Spanish and it helped the British to establish naval dominance over the next several centuries in Europe.
6. Climate change played a role in launching the French Revolution
The French Revolution is often related to things like monarchy, the guillotine, and the proletariat attacking the bourgeoisie. But maybe many of us don’t think of climate change. However, it’s possible that a climate event called the Little Ice Age played a role in launching the French Revolution.
From around 1300 to about 1850, temperatures around the world were lower than average, meaning colder than normal winters and cooler than normal summers with more rain than usual. In particular, there were three times where this Little Ice Age was particularly strong, and one of them started in the 1770’s, which is about 2 decades before the French Revolution gets going. 1788, in particular, was a rough year for weather in Europe, especially France. A 1-2-3-4 punch of drought, rain, cold, and low crops from previous harvests (and almost no crops in 1788 at all from the terrible weather) made the cost of food skyrocket.
With people starving and paying huge amounts of money for food, discontent grew in the cities, and the lower classes began to rise up against the bourgeoisie, and soon the storming of the Bastille and the French Revolution had begun.
5. The Salem Witch Trials happened because of an unusual cold spell in the 17th century
The Salem Witch Trials were a series of hearings that happened from early 1692 to mid 1693 in colonial Massachusetts where over 200 people were accused of witchcraft, 30 people were found guilty, 20 were put to death, and another 5 died in jail.
The Salem Witch Trails, and the witch hunts in general throughout America and Europe were touched off by another one of these particularly strong cold spells from the Little Ice Age. This time period was from 1680 to 1730. Popes and scholars at the time period, not knowing any better, believed that witches were capable of controlling weather and being able to destroy crops because of bad weather. When you had cold spells and failing harvests, and people were suffering from lack of food, it became easier and easier to start pointing fingers at people and accusing them of witchcraft which had put them in this situation.
Tad Baker’s book, “A Storm of Witchcraft,” talks about this in great detail.
4. A gust of wind prevented Samuel Langley from beating the Wright Brothers in the race to fly
Samuel Langley was an astronomer, physicist, inventor, and a man who attempted to become the first person to achieve manned flight. He started experimenting with model aircraft in 1887 and in 1896, he ultimately achieved some success when his fifth prototype of an aircraft that he called the “Aerodrome”. In 1896, he made two flights of 2,300 feet and 3,300 and then 6 months later, a flight of almost a mile. The US Government at this point was getting very excited about Langley’s work, and decided to give him two grants of $70,000 (and by the way, folks, the Wright Brothers never got grants from the government to build their aircraft). By the time 1903 rolled around, Samuel Langley hired Charles Manly as a “pilot” in an attempt to become the first to achieve manned flight.
But two attempts at this failed…both in 1903. The first attempt on October 7, 1903 failed because the Aerodrome wing struck part of the catapult that was used to launch the aircraft as the launch was actually happening. On the second attempt, on December 8, 1903 (just 9 days before the Wright Brothers succeeded at Kitty Hawk), a huge gust of wind came up. The platform on the boat lurched, the aerodrome’s rear wings collapsed, and the Aerodrome crashed. The papers mocked Langley and Manly the next day and Congress began to criticize both the project itself and the grants given to it.
But just 9 days later…the Wright brothers…without any government grants…400 miles to the south…and in prime weather conditions, succeeded where Langley had failed and the Flyer, the first manned aircraft, took flight.
3. The Hindenburg disaster may have occurred because of electrical storms
On May 6, 1937 at New Jersey’s Lakehurst Naval Air Station, the Hindenburg, a German zeppelin, burst into flames and crashed, killing 35 people on board as well as 1 person on the ground.
While there’s still a lot of debate around the Hindenburg disaster, most people agree, though, that it wouldn’t have happened if the ship hadn’t been filled with flammable hydrogen (which was used as its lifting gas), which exploded and caused the fire. The theories about WHY the hydrogen exploded are still all over the place. However, one theory is on the rise in regards to electrical storms possibly being a culprit.
Because of the material of the ship’s exterior, and because the ship had to fly through storm clouds before landing, the ship became electrically charged, and when the mooring cables were dropped from the ship as it attempted to land, a spark was created and it ignited the hydrogen gas, triggering the disaster.
2. The Justinian Plaque was the first, and worst, pandemic in world history, and it started because of climate change
Justinian Plaque, which started in 541 AD is believed to be the first major pandemic in recorded world history, and it’s believed to have killed half of the world’s entire population at the time.
The plaque, which was believed to be primarily bubonic plaque just like the Black Death was, is believed to have started in Egypt and then it spread to Constantinople, which essentially was the hub of the known world at that time. Because of increased commerce and the lack of understanding regarding disease and how it spread, a pandemic was almost certain.
Weather, specifically climate change, is believed to have played a role in launching the pandemic.
Throughout northern Africa and southern Europe, there were periods in the 530’s where snow would be seen in summer, the amount of sunny days was dramatically below average, and of course, temperatures were far below average. Vegetation and crops began to wither and die. Food chains were upset, and it wasn’t just the human populations in these areas that were suffering. It was the entire animal food chain. Small animals, like rats, were dying because they aren’t able to eat things like grain. Soon, the larger animals that fed on the smaller animals started to die as well.
Once this die-off happened, the climate shifted again starting in 540…namely in the form of unusually high rainfall. This rainfall created the conditions necessary for the small animals, especially rats, to revive and boost their numbers back to where they were prior to the original die-off. But now the larger animals that fed on these rats aren’t around in nearly as large of numbers as before. As a result, Africa was inundated with rats, mice and gerbils, which carried the plaque. The disease sprang up in 541, the disease was transported to Constantinople and Europe, and by the time the disease, launched by climate change, burned itself out, half the world’s population was dead.
1. The Great Bhola Cyclone, the deadliest storm in history, helped create the nation of Bangladesh
It’s November of 1970, in the Bay of Bengal which separates India from Southeast Asia, a great cyclone forms. This cyclone becomes known as the Great Bhola cyclone. While it wasn’t the strongest cyclone in history, it was the deadliest cyclone in world history. The reason why was because of where exactly it hit, and because of the lack of warning given to the people in the area where it actually hit
The storm came ashore right over the nation of East Pakistan, and unfortunately, it came ashore over the most densely populated area of the country, the Ganges Delta. This area, to give you an idea, is a series of lowlands that rise only a few feet above sea level and are filled with poorly constructed homes that are built by a population wallowing in poverty. On top of that, they had no warning the storm was even coming. There’s all sorts of reasons for this, but the main reasons is believed to be because the weather stations in India that knew of the storm did very little to notify East Pakistan because of all the Indian and Pakastani frictions that existed at the time.
So in the end, it was the worst and deadliest cyclone in world history, with over 500,000 killed!
East Pakistan at the time was a province of the nation of Pakistan. However, the Pakistani government responded very poorly and provided very little aid to the stricken province. As a result, revolt and rage swept through East Pakistan along with a call for independence. By March of 1971, East Pakistan was at war with Pakistan and by the end of 1971, the province of East Pakistan had become the independent nation of Bangladesh. The most deadly cyclone in world history had helped create a brand new nation.
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