…so far.
2020 is not going down in history books as a good year. We had (in no particular order):
- An enormous Australian bushfire that killed over 1 billion animals (which is more animals I thought Australia had)
- The US on fire after George Floyd’s murder.
- That massive explosion that almost destroyed Beirut.
- A very apocalyptic sounding locust plague in East Africa.
- A catastrophic earthquake in Turkey, completely overshadowed by
- the Covid-19 pandemic (fucking wow) and
- The world’s first toilet paper shortage crisis (double wow).
Still it’s not the worst year ever by far – we’re currently in what seems to be the most peaceful time in human history, though it’s easy to forget if you only focus on the bad news. We had not one but two World Wars in the first half of the 20th century and even disease wise the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic makes Corona look like a mild case of the sniffles.
If you’re looking for the worst year ever, 536 seems to be the historians’ favorite that featured not only the deadly Plague of Justinian but the beginning of a literal dark age caused by a massive volcanic eruption that turned summer into winter across Europe and China. 1346 takes a close second place with its famous Black Death pandemic.
So no, 2020 is not the worst year ever… yet.