The year summer never arrived

A massive 1815 volcanic eruption at Mount Tambora blocked sunlight and triggered global cooling.

Grain and oat prices soared by up to 800 percent as crops failed across the globe.

The lack of oats for horses likely inspired the invention of the bicycle.

Gloomy weather trapped Mary Shelley indoors, leading her to write the horror classic Frankenstein.

Modern estimates attribute at least 100,000 deaths to the famine, disease, and violence of 1816.