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Factual: History

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, people and events that have shaped our world.

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Melvyn Bragg

Clive Oppenheimer

Jane Stabler

Lawrence Goldman

Simon Tillotson

In Our Time: 1816, the Year Without a Summer

1816, the Year Without a Summer

21/04/2016

BBC Radio 4 - In Our Time, 1816, the Year Without a Summer

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss 1816, known as the year without a summer.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the link between the eruption of Mt Tambora in 1815, the largest and most lethal in recorded history, with famines in Europe and America in 1816.

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the impact of the eruption of Mt Tambora, in 1815, on the Indonesian island of Sambawa. This was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history and it had the highest death toll, devastating people living in the immediate area. Tambora has been linked with drastic weather changes in North America and Europe the following year, with frosts in June and heavy rains throughout the summer in many areas. This led to food shortages, which may have prompted westward migration in America and, in a Europe barely recovered from the Napoleonic Wars, led to widespread famine. 

With 

Clive Oppenheimer
Professor of Volcanology at the University of Cambridge

Jane Stabler
Professor in Romantic Literature at the University of St Andrews

And

Lawrence Goldman
Director of the Institute of Historical Research at the University of London


Producer: Simon Tillotson.

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