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After Mount Tambora's 1815 eruption, 1816 brought cold, wet weather, failed harvests and famine across Europe and North America, with effects reaching Asia and some lasting cultural legacies.
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The 1918 flu spread along military, colonial and trade networks in several waves, and faded by 1920–21 as immunity built up and the virus settled into seasonal patterns.
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On 26 April 1986, Unit 4 at Chernobyl exploded during a safety test, releasing large amounts of radiation. Reactor design flaws and operating errors combined to cause it.
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On January 15, 1919, a 50-foot molasses tank burst in Boston's North End, killing 21 people and injuring 150. Poor construction and ignored warnings were blamed.
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Typhoid Mary was Mary Mallon, an Irish-born New York cook who carried typhoid bacteria without symptoms. She was quarantined twice and spent about 26 years on North Brother Island.
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On 6 December 1917, a munitions ship collided with another vessel in Halifax Harbour and exploded, killing roughly 2,000 people in the largest human-made blast before the atomic bomb.
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Krakatau's August 1883 eruption collapsed most of the island, killed over 36,000 people, mostly by tsunamis, and affected the sky, air pressure and temperatures worldwide.
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A volcanic dust veil darkened and cooled much of the Northern Hemisphere in 536, causing crop failures, and plague followed in 541. The label comes from historian Michael McCormick.
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