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The Lil Ice Age Was Way Less Cute Than It Sounds · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. This is the last Ridiculous
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Speaker 1: History episode of twenty one. Mr Max Williams, Mr Noel Brown.
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Speaker 1: They called me Ben we make it? Hey did? We
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Speaker 1: didn't make it? I was worried you're gonna say this
0:58
Speaker 1: is gonna be the last Ridiculous History episode ever, that
1:02
Speaker 1: you are going to use this as an opportunity to
1:04
Speaker 1: like do a rug pull on us. But I'm really
1:06
Speaker 1: glad to know that this just just for the year.
1:08
Speaker 1: We're gonna be back. We're gonna take a little much
1:10
Speaker 1: needed time off. I don't think we're missing any published
1:13
Speaker 1: dates though. Are we bad? No, No, We're We're nothing
1:16
Speaker 1: if not consistent, also ridiculous and ridiculous, consistently ridiculous. Yes,
1:23
Speaker 1: there we go, go team. We also have big, big
1:26
Speaker 1: news coming out in the new year, so stay tuned.
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Speaker 1: We can't wait to tell you about these developments. Today.
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Speaker 1: We want to talk about the weather now. Max, Noel
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Speaker 1: and I are you know, we're we're gentlemen of a
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Speaker 1: certain age, and I think we're all old enough to
1:45
Speaker 1: remember a time in our youth when the weather was
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Speaker 1: a little bit different, right, the winters were maybe a
1:51
Speaker 1: little colder. That would probably be one of the main things, right, Yeah,
1:56
Speaker 1: it's almost as though the climate is changing. Oh, those
2:01
Speaker 1: shouldn't be a controversial statement, but I think we can
2:03
Speaker 1: all just kind of observe it, you know, just literally
2:06
Speaker 1: by walking outside. But yeah, it's true. Um, And in fact,
2:11
Speaker 1: there was a time we obviously know about the the
2:14
Speaker 1: proper ice Age because of those delightful animated films. That's
2:19
Speaker 1: where I get all my news from all histories. Yeah, exactly,
2:23
Speaker 1: but there was in fact an additional, uh somewhat more
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Speaker 1: minuscule ice age that led to some pretty significant changes
2:32
Speaker 1: in the culture of humanity. It is affectionately referred to
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Speaker 1: as the Little Ice Age. Deceptively affectionately referred to as
2:40
Speaker 1: the little ice Age. It makes it sound cute, see right,
2:43
Speaker 1: it's a little diminutive. We know that the I love
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Speaker 1: that you call them the proper ice ages. Uh. The
2:48
Speaker 1: proper ice ages began two point four million years ago,
2:53
Speaker 1: and uh, the last one was about eleven thousand, five
2:56
Speaker 1: hundred years ago. And even those had a ound and
3:00
Speaker 1: lasting effect on human civilization. But what we're talking about today,
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Speaker 1: and what you introduced so beautifully is a much more
3:09
Speaker 1: recent and smaller ice age, but one that's still had
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Speaker 1: a tremendous, almost incalculable effect on people living during that time.
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Speaker 1: And uh, the effects of that are still with us today.
3:22
Speaker 1: Here at the very end of one And just for context,
3:25
Speaker 1: there were in fact six ice ages. There's the original
3:28
Speaker 1: ice Age from two thousand two. There was ice Age
3:30
Speaker 1: that meltdown from two thousand five. Then there was the
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Speaker 1: somewhat less known smaller ice Age No Time for Nuts,
3:37
Speaker 1: which I think was a spinoff involved in a cute
3:39
Speaker 1: little squirrel guy. Then there was ice Age Dawn of
3:42
Speaker 1: the Dinosaurs came out in two thousand nine. Ice Sage
3:44
Speaker 1: Continental Drift from Tropical Punch. No, oh, I don't know
3:49
Speaker 1: about that one. That sounds delicious. Uh, there was ice
3:52
Speaker 1: Age Collision I think was the ultimate ice Age, but
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Speaker 1: we're not talking about any of those today. We're talking
3:58
Speaker 1: about the Little Ice Age. Took place around the middle
4:01
Speaker 1: of the seventeenth century, but some believe that it was
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Speaker 1: already you know, well on its way about four centuries
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Speaker 1: before that time. Yeah. Yeah, experts still aren't sure exactly
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Speaker 1: when Little Ice Age began and when it ended? Uh,
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Speaker 1: and whether or not it was just one thing or
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Speaker 1: a series of multiple smaller Ice Age like occurrences, And
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Speaker 1: I love that we're I I propose that we just
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Speaker 1: refer to it as Little Ice Age because, as we'll see,
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Speaker 1: we need the levity and Little Ice Age sounds like
4:33
Speaker 1: it could be someone's street name, which I love. So
4:35
Speaker 1: if you have a mixtape, send it. Yeah, Little Ice
4:38
Speaker 1: Age definitely has some bars, no question about it. Also,
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Speaker 1: it makes me think if there's a really great MGMT
4:45
Speaker 1: song called Little Dark Age, you haven't heard that one,
4:49
Speaker 1: or if you slept on that era of mg MT,
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Speaker 1: it's super cool. It's a really good track. Um, but
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Speaker 1: you're right, Ben, So Yeah. Scientists do have differing opinions
4:58
Speaker 1: as to when it began, but the farthest back that
5:02
Speaker 1: it dates would be covering a large portion of the
5:05
Speaker 1: Middle Ages. Um. There is a really great article on
5:09
Speaker 1: history collection by Larry Holdsworth Ten Bizarre Things One Need
5:13
Speaker 1: to Know about the Age. Interesting headline there. Larry. Excellent
5:18
Speaker 1: article though, and most scientists agree that it ended at
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Speaker 1: the very least in the nineteenth century, so it would
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Speaker 1: have affected events throughout much of European history, things like
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Speaker 1: famine in France, in Poland what's known as Europe's Great Famine,
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Speaker 1: and also other changes, cultural changes and civilization level changes
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Speaker 1: that may have occurred during the medieval period as well
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Speaker 1: because of lil ice Age. Yeah yeah, so let's let's
5:49
Speaker 1: look at the causes. So with the benefit of retrospect,
5:54
Speaker 1: humanity is able to look back at these series of
5:58
Speaker 1: events and determine what likely caused this and perhaps just
6:03
Speaker 1: as importantly, what likely did not. So let's look at
6:06
Speaker 1: the science. There was a study that came out in
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Speaker 1: uh journal Environmental Research Letters, and their argument is that
6:13
Speaker 1: low solar activity caused these very, very nasty winters. This
6:18
Speaker 1: is also mentioned in BBC News and a great article
6:21
Speaker 1: in the Smithsonian mag which is Little Ice Age art
6:25
Speaker 1: by Sarah Zelinski, and they essentially say that the jet
6:29
Speaker 1: stream was blocked over the northeastern Atlantic in a way
6:34
Speaker 1: that caused wind to fold back over itself and cold,
6:38
Speaker 1: dry winds from an eastern flow over Europe, and the
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Speaker 1: jet stream was pushed further north than cold dry winds
6:45
Speaker 1: from the east came over Europe and made a sharp
6:47
Speaker 1: fall and temperatures and when solar activity is a little.
6:51
Speaker 1: This exacerbates the problem. So their ideas that are prolonged
6:55
Speaker 1: quote unquote blocking was responsible for this long, long spell
6:59
Speaker 1: of freezing conditions. This leads us to something interesting. The
7:04
Speaker 1: causes of the ice age are recorded in geological evidence,
7:09
Speaker 1: glacial expansion uh and volcanic activity, which volcanic activity is huge. No.
7:14
Speaker 1: We saw this in an episode we did for stuff
7:18
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know on the Bronze Age collapse. Right,
7:21
Speaker 1: the possibility that a volcano in a place that most
7:25
Speaker 1: of these Europeans will never visit was in some way
7:28
Speaker 1: responsible for the weather conditions that directly affected them. That's
7:32
Speaker 1: totally right. And we have a science and environment reporter
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Speaker 1: over at the BBC News named Mark Kinver detailing a
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Speaker 1: lot of these uh kind of big picture you know,
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Speaker 1: um weather conditions that lead to some of the coldest
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Speaker 1: winters that the UK had ever seen. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
7:52
Speaker 1: And this when we're talking about this cool what we
7:56
Speaker 1: would call a cooling period, but we have obviously decided
8:00
Speaker 1: to call a little ice age. Little ice age may
8:03
Speaker 1: have been caused by the eruption of a volcano in Indonesia,
8:08
Speaker 1: the Salamas volcano in twelve fifty seven. This put so
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Speaker 1: much junk into the atmosphere that it reduced the ability
8:17
Speaker 1: of the sun to warm the planet. It's like the
8:20
Speaker 1: worst fart ever. Yeah uh. It causes something called glacial
8:26
Speaker 1: expansion and encroachment, which I think you can visualize what
8:29
Speaker 1: that means. It's been you know, those damn glaciers. They're
8:32
Speaker 1: just really encroaching on all of our They have no
8:34
Speaker 1: chill yet are completely the chilliest thing that could possibly be.
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Speaker 1: And it's also been suggested, according to the History Collection
8:43
Speaker 1: article we cited earlier, that this um period of reduced
8:48
Speaker 1: solar warming caused by the eruption of the salamus uh
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Speaker 1: was directly linked to crop failures and famine in Europe.
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Speaker 1: But whether that wasn't fact the thing that triggered a
9:01
Speaker 1: little ice age to you know, come into full effect,
9:04
Speaker 1: is not entirely clear. Like we said, scientists are still
9:07
Speaker 1: kind of struggling with the chronology here. Um. So let's
9:10
Speaker 1: let's fast forward a little bit too, around the year
9:13
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred, yeah hundred, so the disruption of the normal
9:26
Speaker 1: passage of seasons becomes apparent to everyone. We have to
9:29
Speaker 1: realize these were largely a grarian societies. People were very
9:33
Speaker 1: attuned to the natural world, the cycle of harvest and
9:37
Speaker 1: the weather. So the typical spring, summer, fall, winter cycle
9:42
Speaker 1: goes food bar Winters are way more nasty, springs are
9:46
Speaker 1: super dry, the rain isn't coming, and summer is no
9:50
Speaker 1: longer as consistently warm as it had been in previous years,
9:54
Speaker 1: in decades, Like you said, unfortunately, famine is just demolishing
10:01
Speaker 1: the continent, and famine brings with it a bevy of
10:04
Speaker 1: other malnutrition related diseases. Also, the plague shows up, because
10:08
Speaker 1: who doesn't love a cameo, right, And when this happens,
10:12
Speaker 1: people and institutions importantly like the Church, the aristocracy, they're
10:17
Speaker 1: trying to find scapegoats for this. They're not using the
10:20
Speaker 1: word climate change, but they are saying something must be done,
10:26
Speaker 1: someone is responsible, and so they go back to the unfortunate,
10:32
Speaker 1: like scapegoats so often in history, women and people of
10:36
Speaker 1: Jewish religion. That's right, And at first the Church, not
10:40
Speaker 1: purely out of like humanitarian motivations, said that no, no, no,
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Speaker 1: don't persecute these people. Only God can control the weather
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Speaker 1: and that which is uh, and people of Jewish faith
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Speaker 1: were not possessed of the power to outrank God, you know,
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Speaker 1: any of these types of things. But those arguments did
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Speaker 1: not particularly go over with the population who still thought
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Speaker 1: it best to persecute, which is and Jewish people. Yeah, yeah,
11:10
Speaker 1: and you can picture the scene because the Catholic Church
11:14
Speaker 1: importantly did not deny what they saw is the fact
11:19
Speaker 1: that which is, warlock, sorcerers, what have you existed. They
11:24
Speaker 1: just disagreed about how much power those individuals could have.
11:28
Speaker 1: And as these temperatures were dropping, as people were increasingly
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Speaker 1: hungry and desperate and being ravaged by disease, that's when
11:37
Speaker 1: we see early witchcraft trials and persecutions start beginning in
11:43
Speaker 1: Europe for instance. You know, there's a domino effect that happens,
11:47
Speaker 1: like let's look at honey. Honey is pretty awesome as
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Speaker 1: just a substance as no bacteria, so it can't spoil.
11:55
Speaker 1: It can be used as a sweetener and a preservative.
11:57
Speaker 1: We've got to do an episode on the legend of
11:59
Speaker 1: the mel A five man one day, by the way,
12:02
Speaker 1: which is preserved like making honey mummies true story, and
12:06
Speaker 1: uh yeah, it was very it was very popular preservative.
12:09
Speaker 1: You know, you have oftentimes in I believe, uh sarcophag
12:13
Speaker 1: guy you know of of of great pharaohs and rulers
12:17
Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt, they would have body parts preserved in
12:20
Speaker 1: honey or or so also like they had like a
12:22
Speaker 1: formaldehyde esque preservative typechemical, if I'm not mistaken, some analog
12:26
Speaker 1: to that. But honey was also super super popular. And
12:29
Speaker 1: as we know, it's always been a really good way
12:32
Speaker 1: to track changes and problems in the weather by tracking
12:36
Speaker 1: what happens to bees and things like colony collapse and
12:39
Speaker 1: all of that stuff. Um, this wasn't exactly that level yet,
12:42
Speaker 1: but the continuing cold weather kept the bees from poll
12:46
Speaker 1: naming plants properly, also kept cows from producing the proper
12:50
Speaker 1: amount of milk. And these are also things if we
12:55
Speaker 1: go back to one of I Think You're Not You
12:56
Speaker 1: and my favorite movies the last couple of years, the
12:59
Speaker 1: which when the cows aren't producing milk or you know,
13:03
Speaker 1: are like literally squirting out bloody puss instead of milk,
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Speaker 1: that is typically seen as a sign of of demonic intervention. Witchcraft. Yeah,
13:13
Speaker 1: oh man, can you imagine living back in a time
13:16
Speaker 1: where you could just say witchcraft was the reason for
13:18
Speaker 1: stuff like I could be late to a recording and
13:21
Speaker 1: and say sorry old sorry. Max was I was in
13:24
Speaker 1: traffic and there was a witchcraft situation, and you guys
13:26
Speaker 1: would be like, oh, snap, are you okay? I was like,
13:29
Speaker 1: I was a frog for a second, but I'm back anyway,
13:32
Speaker 1: little ice age. Yeah, Witchcraft was treated as this actual,
13:38
Speaker 1: like plausible cause for these terrible things happening. And of course,
13:45
Speaker 1: a lot of times I would even argue the majority
13:47
Speaker 1: of times that people were accused of witchcraft, they were
13:51
Speaker 1: going to be women of a certain demographic, people who
13:54
Speaker 1: were very vulnerable. Uh. They were maybe unmarried, maybe they
13:58
Speaker 1: were elderly, maybe they were practice seen you know, uh,
14:01
Speaker 1: natural medicine of some sort, something that could be seen
14:04
Speaker 1: as ungodly, and neighbors wanted someone to accuse, so they
14:09
Speaker 1: picked the most vulnerable in the herd. People of the
14:12
Speaker 1: Jewish faith were accused of being the cause of the plague,
14:15
Speaker 1: of spreading the plague for some reason, even though they
14:19
Speaker 1: were obviously those communities were obviously being affected by the
14:22
Speaker 1: plague as well. And then there were, of course, there
14:25
Speaker 1: was the kind of almost apocalyptic Christianity, uh school of
14:30
Speaker 1: thought where people would say, the sun is less warm
14:34
Speaker 1: to us now because God is mad, because a bunch
14:37
Speaker 1: of you you know, made him angry, and so it's
14:40
Speaker 1: up to us as the good Christians to make things
14:44
Speaker 1: right with God. So this causes a lot of a
14:49
Speaker 1: lot of Jewish people in Jewish communities living in Europe
14:52
Speaker 1: to say, forget this. We've seen this before. They know
14:56
Speaker 1: the score. So they're saying, we're not gonna hang around
14:59
Speaker 1: with these crazy people. And so they there's this huge
15:02
Speaker 1: exodus into the Ottoman Empire, and for a time, comparatively
15:07
Speaker 1: it felt like it was a less less dangerous, less
15:10
Speaker 1: oppressive place. But the sad thing is while people were
15:14
Speaker 1: trying to find all these causes at the time, and
15:17
Speaker 1: they were like witchcraft, religions, we don't like, you know, prejudice,
15:22
Speaker 1: the problem is that the situation they were trying to
15:26
Speaker 1: explain was very real, and a lot of people died,
15:31
Speaker 1: a lot of people lost their livelihood. Like nol we
15:34
Speaker 1: know from the work of Hubert Lamb like we have
15:38
Speaker 1: a really good and somber picture of how much the
15:42
Speaker 1: weather changed. That's right. The growing season changed by fifteen
15:47
Speaker 1: to twenty per cent between the warmest and coldest times
15:51
Speaker 1: of the entire millennium um, which is enough to affect
15:55
Speaker 1: just about any variety of crop auction food production, especially
16:02
Speaker 1: ones that have adapted to that predictable full season warm climate,
16:07
Speaker 1: you know cycle that we're talking about. So during the
16:10
Speaker 1: coldest times of Lilie sage, England's growing season was shortened
16:16
Speaker 1: by one to two entire months compared to what we
16:19
Speaker 1: know today. So the availability of certain varieties of seeds
16:24
Speaker 1: that can actually withstand that kind of extreme cold or warmth,
16:28
Speaker 1: or wetness or dryness, it just wasn't available the ones
16:32
Speaker 1: that we have today, you know, and largely that comes
16:34
Speaker 1: from GMOs, right, Ben, Yeah, there there's been a lot
16:37
Speaker 1: of extensive work in making towards making more hardy varieties
16:42
Speaker 1: of staple crops. So shout out to Norman Borlog in
16:46
Speaker 1: the Green Revolution, but this is far far before his time, right,
16:50
Speaker 1: These these folks are trying to make their food grow
16:57
Speaker 1: in an increasingly hostile environment. And during this little ice
17:01
Speaker 1: age or ages, debatably, famines became a regular thing. Sometimes
17:07
Speaker 1: there would be years where things go okay and there
17:10
Speaker 1: would be gaps in famines, but other countries, some other
17:14
Speaker 1: countries or other parts of Europe would just consistently consecutively
17:19
Speaker 1: experience systemic famine. And all of these famines also happened
17:24
Speaker 1: in a way that correlated with wars. You know, war
17:28
Speaker 1: often leads to famine because you've got a lot of
17:31
Speaker 1: disruption of communities that would be growing food, You've got
17:35
Speaker 1: moving armies which are very hungry things. And then it's
17:39
Speaker 1: strange because it's kind of like, um, a six in
17:43
Speaker 1: one hand, half a dozen. No, No, it's like a
17:45
Speaker 1: chicken in the egg situation, because sometimes famine happens because
17:49
Speaker 1: a war is ongoing, but then other times a famine
17:53
Speaker 1: just occurs due to weather and that desperation causes a war.
17:59
Speaker 1: So it's a damn if you do damned if you
18:01
Speaker 1: don't hungry, either way kind of situation. These severe shortages
18:07
Speaker 1: had a cumulative effect, right, because it takes years to
18:10
Speaker 1: recover from one year of famine. So if you're trying,
18:13
Speaker 1: like if you survived the first year of famine and
18:16
Speaker 1: you're trying to survive the next year, you want everything
18:19
Speaker 1: to go okay. But if you get hit with a
18:20
Speaker 1: double whammy of a famine, then you're even worse off. Yeah,
18:24
Speaker 1: we know that the Irish in particular have caught the
18:26
Speaker 1: brunt of of quite a few famines over the years,
18:29
Speaker 1: and uh, this one was no exception. Over nine hundred
18:33
Speaker 1: thousand Irish people lost their lives in this climate caused
18:37
Speaker 1: disaster and they dubbed it the Year of Slaughter, So
18:42
Speaker 1: not a fun time. There were also during the life
18:46
Speaker 1: Sage quite a high occurrence of storms. Um. That's another
18:52
Speaker 1: thing we see because of climate change, with a lot
18:54
Speaker 1: of these really nasty weather events that become strangely yet
18:58
Speaker 1: perfectly perceivable, more and more frequent and more and more disastrous. Yeah. Yeah,
19:05
Speaker 1: and that's an excellent point. We know that sometimes the
19:10
Speaker 1: crops died just because the soil was too wet, the
19:14
Speaker 1: rains were coming at the wrong times. Uh. The only
19:18
Speaker 1: place really that made it out relatively unscathed. Comparatively unscathed
19:23
Speaker 1: would be southern France, the Mediterranean region of that area.
19:28
Speaker 1: There's another thing where in East Prussia between just three
19:31
Speaker 1: years seventeen o eight to seventeen eleven, crop failure led
19:36
Speaker 1: to famine, which led to over forty per cent of
19:41
Speaker 1: the population dying due to starvation or disease. Like, think
19:45
Speaker 1: of of all the people you know and just imagine
19:48
Speaker 1: the thanos snap. Damn. Little I say is you're not
19:52
Speaker 1: cute at all. No, not one bit. But you know,
19:57
Speaker 1: there's always a two ways to look at these of things.
20:00
Speaker 1: If you pull back the camera far enough. Uh so,
20:03
Speaker 1: let's let's let's do uh let's blue sky, this bad
20:05
Speaker 1: boy shout, let's silver lining this guy a little ice age.
20:09
Speaker 1: You aren't all bad, becaus we know, like horrible conditions
20:13
Speaker 1: often lead to explosions and things like art and technology,
20:18
Speaker 1: technological advancements. I mean, you know, humanity is usually most
20:22
Speaker 1: successful and plucky when pushed to the brink. Yeah. Yeah,
20:27
Speaker 1: Necessity is the mother of invention, as we so often
20:31
Speaker 1: say in this species. It's strange because if you look
20:35
Speaker 1: at the art that you're you're alluding to here, paintings,
20:40
Speaker 1: what cuts of people and so on during the seventeenth
20:42
Speaker 1: and early eighteenth century, you will notice immediately one thing.
20:47
Speaker 1: Everybody is wearing a lot of clothing, right, everybody is
20:51
Speaker 1: bundled up. And you can tell if you know about
20:54
Speaker 1: the little ice age, you can tell where that's coming from.
20:56
Speaker 1: Because it's cold all year. Summer is not reaching summer
21:00
Speaker 1: temperatures it was. It was also a time before there
21:04
Speaker 1: was a lot of global communication, so people didn't know
21:08
Speaker 1: that other people in say North America we're also having
21:11
Speaker 1: a terrible time. They thought these were local conditions and
21:15
Speaker 1: they needed local solutions. And you can also see an
21:19
Speaker 1: evolution of fashion. If you look closer at that clothing,
21:22
Speaker 1: you'll see some of this stuff that used to be
21:24
Speaker 1: just tied together laced together now has buttons instead, because
21:29
Speaker 1: it's a better way of sealing the barrier between you
21:32
Speaker 1: and the hostile wintry environment. Yeah, shout out again to tendemis.
21:37
Speaker 1: Are things one needed to know about? The Little Ice
21:40
Speaker 1: Age by Larry Holdsworth from History Collection, highly recommend giving
21:44
Speaker 1: that one a full read. Uh. So, okay, we've got art.
21:48
Speaker 1: Maybe it wasn't necessarily on the list, but um, we
21:51
Speaker 1: do look to art to kind of show us some
21:53
Speaker 1: of these other advancements, you know, in clothing. What we
21:57
Speaker 1: also see is innovation in farming. You know, obviously they
22:01
Speaker 1: didn't have the GMOs that we have today, you know,
22:04
Speaker 1: the ability to kind of like genetically manipulate seeds and stuff.
22:08
Speaker 1: But they did figure out ways to create better stores
22:12
Speaker 1: of grain, realizing that they need to set aside a surplus,
22:16
Speaker 1: uh for those brutal winters and also in the event
22:20
Speaker 1: that there were crop failures. Right. Yeah, and this is
22:24
Speaker 1: This is a great idea. This is literally investing in
22:28
Speaker 1: your future. The taxman didn't like this. The merchant class
22:32
Speaker 1: didn't like this, the crop dealers didn't like this. We
22:35
Speaker 1: have to remember that a lot of people in Europe
22:38
Speaker 1: at the time did not own the land that they farmed.
22:41
Speaker 1: They were surfs, they were peasants, so they grew crops
22:46
Speaker 1: and they had to give most of it to the landlord.
22:49
Speaker 1: The landowner usually like the nobility, maybe a church of
22:53
Speaker 1: some sort, and then they could have a small amount
22:57
Speaker 1: of what they grew. It's like imagine if you you
23:00
Speaker 1: work at a pizzeria and you don't own the pizzeria
23:05
Speaker 1: and you make pizzas, and like you can have a
23:08
Speaker 1: slice of every tenth pizza and that's how you're paid.
23:12
Speaker 1: Like it's it sure isn't. And it is the root
23:16
Speaker 1: of the type of resentment that led to the overthrow
23:20
Speaker 1: or org in general, the kind of resentments that lead
23:23
Speaker 1: to overthrows of ruling classes. You know by the surf
23:28
Speaker 1: that you mentioned, because there's a really great line in
23:31
Speaker 1: the most recent episode of Succession or The Fine the finale,
23:35
Speaker 1: where a character played by Sellin's Alexander Starskard. He's like
23:38
Speaker 1: this sort of like Google, kind of like Guru guy.
23:41
Speaker 1: He says that they tells the story about how Um
23:44
Speaker 1: an ancient Rome. I believe there was this idea that
23:48
Speaker 1: we should make all of the slaves dressed the same
23:51
Speaker 1: so that you can tell them apart, until they realized
23:54
Speaker 1: that if the slaves all dressed the same, they would
23:56
Speaker 1: know who they were and realize that there were way
23:59
Speaker 1: more of them than there were of the ruling class,
24:01
Speaker 1: and would therefore a rise up and kill their masters.
24:04
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what happened on a long timeline.
24:07
Speaker 1: That this is, you know, like I said, sort of
24:09
Speaker 1: the seeds of this sort of resentment that led to
24:12
Speaker 1: the French Revolution, because these people are literally starving. They're
24:15
Speaker 1: working the land for these owners, the landowners, and they're
24:20
Speaker 1: getting kind of yelled at for trying to keep some
24:24
Speaker 1: for themselves to eat. Yeah, it reminds me of that
24:26
Speaker 1: old you know. I think it's the quotation I believe
24:30
Speaker 1: as attributed to Vladimir Lenin, But there's this quote that
24:35
Speaker 1: always stuck with me. Every society is three meals away
24:39
Speaker 1: from chaos, and I think that's that's a very that's
24:43
Speaker 1: a profound way to put it. And you are absolutely right.
24:47
Speaker 1: Nothing occurs in a vacuum. So this also causes the
24:51
Speaker 1: status quo and the social order to be questioned, and
24:55
Speaker 1: rightly so, because people are dying. We also see that
25:05
Speaker 1: the nature of law enforcement and crime changes. The crime
25:09
Speaker 1: of stealing food was you know, kind of like a
25:14
Speaker 1: minor offense in many cases before this point. But as
25:19
Speaker 1: food becomes more scarce, uh, and everybody is panicking, than
25:25
Speaker 1: the penalties for stealing food becoming increasingly harsh until the
25:30
Speaker 1: status quo and I suspect this is oh, I think
25:33
Speaker 1: we found a cause here man. So I thats or
25:37
Speaker 1: I would not be surprised to learn that the ruling classes,
25:42
Speaker 1: the religious and political authorities, I wouldn't be surprised to
25:46
Speaker 1: learn that they were a d behind the idea of
25:49
Speaker 1: witchcraft and religious persecution because it took the onus off them. Yeah,
25:58
Speaker 1: and you mentioned about the draconian levels of punishment that
26:01
Speaker 1: were attributed to stealing food. It makes me think of
26:04
Speaker 1: Jean Valjean from Le Miserable and he stole a loaf
26:07
Speaker 1: of bread, uh and ends up working in this like
26:10
Speaker 1: labor camp, you know, for like twenty years or something.
26:13
Speaker 1: You know, absolutely uh, punishment not befitting the crime, but
26:16
Speaker 1: that it was a control mechanism. They wanted to strike
26:20
Speaker 1: fear into the hearts of these peasants and make them
26:22
Speaker 1: okay with the status quo of depending on the ruling
26:26
Speaker 1: class to even get a few crumbs to survive for
26:29
Speaker 1: the privilege of being able to work themselves to the
26:32
Speaker 1: bone for these masters. Oh kan, Yeah, and you know
26:37
Speaker 1: the more things changed, man, I was talking to I
26:40
Speaker 1: was talking to a friend who is experiencing on we
26:42
Speaker 1: and they're just being worn down. There what There's someone
26:45
Speaker 1: who was going into work physically consistently. They had to
26:48
Speaker 1: because the nature of their job, and he told me
26:51
Speaker 1: recently they were like, Ben, you know, it hit me.
26:54
Speaker 1: I was in traffic and I thought, I'm going to
26:58
Speaker 1: work to get money to buy gas to fill up
27:02
Speaker 1: my car so I can drive to work to get
27:04
Speaker 1: money to buy gas to fill up my car so
27:08
Speaker 1: I can go to like this, there's this uh, I
27:11
Speaker 1: don't know. It's it's a dangerous system. But okay, since
27:14
Speaker 1: we're trying to be positive on this show. No, you
27:17
Speaker 1: did awesome jobs setting up Blue Sky Time, right. Bright
27:22
Speaker 1: We're Mr Brightside or whatever. We are all collectively Mr
27:26
Speaker 1: Brightside um talking out of my cage. I've been doing
27:30
Speaker 1: just fine, just fine. She takes off her dress. Now
27:33
Speaker 1: I don't remember the next line, but total banger really good,
27:37
Speaker 1: so I like it. I was surprised, but there were
27:39
Speaker 1: good things. There were advancements in technology, including musical technology,
27:45
Speaker 1: which I thought would be especially interesting to us. It
27:48
Speaker 1: is very interesting because I was not aware of the
27:50
Speaker 1: idea of the quality of wood changing because of these
27:55
Speaker 1: types of conditions. So the Renaissance period which we all
27:59
Speaker 1: associate like this flourishing intellectual you know, explosion in culture,
28:05
Speaker 1: largely you know in Europe of course, starting in Europe
28:08
Speaker 1: and music, and of course with that comes advancements in
28:13
Speaker 1: musical technology. I mean, what is a musical instrument if
28:15
Speaker 1: not a form of technology. Things like violins, viola's forte pianos, harpsichords,
28:21
Speaker 1: other inventions that were you know that we don't really
28:25
Speaker 1: they haven't really stuck around quite as much today. But
28:28
Speaker 1: a lot of these um forward movements in the quality
28:31
Speaker 1: of these instruments has been proposed to be associated with
28:34
Speaker 1: the condition uh that led the conditions, rather that lead
28:37
Speaker 1: to the improvement of the types of wood being used.
28:42
Speaker 1: The fact that they were being seasoned prior to their
28:46
Speaker 1: use because of the harsh conditions. I guess it made
28:49
Speaker 1: them stronger over time. Uh, it created a more dense
28:53
Speaker 1: material that gave it a more unique and beautiful tone
28:57
Speaker 1: when it was vibrated, you know, by the strings creating
29:01
Speaker 1: sweetness from suffering, which is in a way one of
29:05
Speaker 1: the core stories of humanity. Of course, nowadays we know
29:10
Speaker 1: that Europe is not in the midst of a little
29:13
Speaker 1: ice age. Uh. In fact, we know that right now
29:17
Speaker 1: there are scientists keeping a close eye on glacial shelves
29:21
Speaker 1: in Antarctica because they may shear off and they may
29:27
Speaker 1: raise the sea levels. So there are some other weather
29:30
Speaker 1: problems on the way. But whether or not you believe
29:35
Speaker 1: in climate change, yeah, no, it's spelled the way you
29:37
Speaker 1: think it's spelled. We're doing written puns now on an
29:41
Speaker 1: audio show. Uh regardless. Um, I think we can all
29:47
Speaker 1: agree that climate change is a fact, and it is
29:50
Speaker 1: experiential knowledge for a lot of people at this point,
29:53
Speaker 1: because we have seen the weather changing. And one thing
29:57
Speaker 1: we can say here at the very end of me
30:00
Speaker 1: one is that humanity has been through this before. It's
30:04
Speaker 1: not the species first rodeo and even when times are tough,
30:08
Speaker 1: you see these acts of profound beauty and generosity. And
30:11
Speaker 1: so I think we did find some positive notes. But
30:14
Speaker 1: also who knew that there there was a little ice
30:18
Speaker 1: age in need? Was a little ice age? Uh And
30:22
Speaker 1: also just to wrap it up again in kind of
30:24
Speaker 1: a nice way, um, between sixteen hundred and eighteen fourteen,
30:28
Speaker 1: the River Thames, you know, the famous River Thames, you
30:31
Speaker 1: know with the swans and all that, uh No swans
30:33
Speaker 1: around this time would freeze over for around two months
30:37
Speaker 1: and that was specifically directly tied to this little ice
30:41
Speaker 1: age that Britain was was experiencing. The other factor that
30:45
Speaker 1: led to this were bridges um London Bridge and It's
30:49
Speaker 1: and it's piers you know that, you know literally like
30:53
Speaker 1: docking piers um for shipping. They were so close together
30:58
Speaker 1: that during the winter, these pieces of ice would get
31:00
Speaker 1: stuck between the piers and block up the river. So
31:05
Speaker 1: it became easier conditions for the whole thing to freeze over.
31:09
Speaker 1: And people took advantage of this, you know, like I
31:12
Speaker 1: mean again, human ingenuity. A lake freezes over, you you
31:14
Speaker 1: go ice fishing? Are you? You? Ice skate? People just
31:17
Speaker 1: kind of figure this stuff out to make to make
31:19
Speaker 1: something good at us, something kind of scary, and this
31:21
Speaker 1: was no exception. Yeah, yeah, this is where we see,
31:25
Speaker 1: oh this is a great place to endy. Yeah, this
31:26
Speaker 1: is where we see the emergence of the Tim's frost fares.
31:31
Speaker 1: People said, well, if the river is freezing, you know,
31:34
Speaker 1: it's not like we're gonna be unloading ships for a while.
31:36
Speaker 1: Let's party, let's get down. And so there's a cool
31:41
Speaker 1: article about this by Tom Dick Castella over on BBC
31:44
Speaker 1: Frost Fair when an elephant walked on the frozen river
31:47
Speaker 1: Tims which could you know what now in retrospect, No,
31:50
Speaker 1: maybe that could have been our angle from the beginning.
31:52
Speaker 1: We've talked about how horrible the little ice h was.
31:55
Speaker 1: Should we have opened with the parties? No, I think
31:58
Speaker 1: it's good that we're ending on the party, these Christmas party. Yeah.
32:02
Speaker 1: I mean think about it that there would be all
32:03
Speaker 1: these like I think of it as like an elaborate
32:05
Speaker 1: set of pop ups. Right, So you had like these
32:07
Speaker 1: little little bars, you know, with was wastle or whatever.
32:11
Speaker 1: I'm sure all you know, hot drinks and all of that.
32:14
Speaker 1: There was ice skating, There were little shops and things
32:17
Speaker 1: like that, and food and it would have just been
32:19
Speaker 1: like a really good old time. Um, and everyone obviously
32:23
Speaker 1: would have been super bundled up because you get used
32:25
Speaker 1: to these kinds of conditions. If you live in a
32:27
Speaker 1: region that has this level of brutality and it's winter
32:30
Speaker 1: to be kind of becomes something that you you know. Uh,
32:33
Speaker 1: and you can still party with the best of them
32:36
Speaker 1: even under the worst of conditions. Oh wow, you kind
32:39
Speaker 1: of actually described ridiculous history. Huh. Party with the best
32:43
Speaker 1: of them even under the worst possible conditions. Yeah, or
32:45
Speaker 1: party with the worst of them under the best of conditions. Unclear?
32:48
Speaker 1: Which one we are? Yeah, we're we're here. Uh, and
32:52
Speaker 1: this has been ridiculous history. Uh for two thousand and
32:56
Speaker 1: twenty one, the year of Our Lord? What a year
32:58
Speaker 1: of What a weird year have been? Wait? Wait wait,
33:00
Speaker 1: which one is the other? Multiple years of Our Lord? Yeah, Okay,
33:05
Speaker 1: it's kind of like, um, it's kind of like Air
33:07
Speaker 1: Force one. How what whatever playing the president is in
33:10
Speaker 1: is Air Force one. So if somebody already has an
33:13
Speaker 1: Our Lord, whenever they say the year of Our Lord,
33:16
Speaker 1: it's just whatever year was. That's my working theory. But yes,
33:21
Speaker 1: you're right, we are closing out and we want to
33:25
Speaker 1: thank all of our fellow ridiculous historians who have been
33:28
Speaker 1: on this wild ride with us. We do have our
33:32
Speaker 1: good good friend Casey Pegram returning. Uh act surprised. We're
33:38
Speaker 1: gonna try to class it up. I think Max, we're
33:41
Speaker 1: talking about putting on a suit. Um and can we
33:44
Speaker 1: you know what, can we just at the very end
33:46
Speaker 1: of the yearinal, can we put some respect on Max's
33:49
Speaker 1: name for that robe or put some respect on his robe?
33:52
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, it's My mouth is full of respect from
33:55
Speaker 1: Max and his robe. And I'm gonna keep that in there.
33:57
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep it in there. Um Ma is wearing
34:00
Speaker 1: this very father Christmas like almost like the hood of
34:04
Speaker 1: a viper, you know, or like a king cobra, but
34:08
Speaker 1: yet fuzzy on the inside. Picture that ghost of uh
34:12
Speaker 1: it's is it the ghost of Christmas present? See the
34:16
Speaker 1: spooky one? No, that's the future. It's the jolly guy
34:20
Speaker 1: with the big with the big robe, right right. But
34:24
Speaker 1: I think you know, but the ghost of Christmas Future
34:26
Speaker 1: also had a pretty nat gnarly robe with a with
34:29
Speaker 1: a spooky death hood. I like to think of Max
34:31
Speaker 1: Moore as the the jovial ghost to me too. Max
34:37
Speaker 1: might be a little different, no, from more of a
34:41
Speaker 1: mad Max kind of situation, I think for all of us. Yes, uh,
34:45
Speaker 1: and thank you of course. Thank you to everyone who's
34:48
Speaker 1: who's tuned in over the years. As always, you can't
34:50
Speaker 1: wait to hear from you. Thanks to Mr Max Williams
34:54
Speaker 1: very own father Christmas. Thanks to Alex Williams. Well, I
34:58
Speaker 1: guess would be our Jack frost in the stuation for
35:01
Speaker 1: Frosty boy. Yeah, he's a frosty boy. He stays frosty.
35:04
Speaker 1: Uh and thanks of course. Uh, Noel, thank you man.
35:08
Speaker 1: We have been through a lot, uh these past few years,
35:12
Speaker 1: and it's amazing. You know. I just feel profoundly fortunate
35:16
Speaker 1: and grateful to be a part of shows like this.
35:19
Speaker 1: It means a lot, So thank you. Same. No one
35:21
Speaker 1: i'd rather spend my time with in podcast world than
35:25
Speaker 1: than you two guys, so both France, he's a little
35:30
Speaker 1: grading No, ma's cool. That's great. That that that that's
35:33
Speaker 1: its own other thing. We'd have map back on this show.
35:35
Speaker 1: Let's make out his resolution for a hundred million percent agreed.
35:40
Speaker 1: Nobody question my math there absolutely and I very much
35:44
Speaker 1: look forward to being a part of that. One that
35:45
Speaker 1: don't has he been on when I've been on. I know. Yeah, Okay,
35:49
Speaker 1: we were we were on the road and we were
35:51
Speaker 1: recording in a hotel room and he came in with
35:54
Speaker 1: one of his awesome like Colonel Sanders voices or something.
35:57
Speaker 1: That's right, Colonel Angus, Colonel Angus, that's right, that's right.
36:03
Speaker 1: Oh man, some fun. Yeah. Well, hopefully we will stay
36:08
Speaker 1: with you two, keeping you warm. Um. Check out the
36:10
Speaker 1: back catalog. There's a lot of it to enjoy, uh
36:13
Speaker 1: during this holiday season. And like I said, we're not
36:16
Speaker 1: even gonna miss a beat, So tune in next week
36:18
Speaker 1: and there will be more ridiculous history for your enjoyment.
36:21
Speaker 1: Happy New Year, indeed, see you next time, folks. For
36:32
Speaker 1: more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart
36:34
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
36:37
Speaker 1: favorite shows.