How Climate Made History : Episode 2 / ZDF.

[Place of publication not identified] : ZDF, [2015]

New York, N.Y. : Distributed by Infobase, 2017.

©2015

1 streaming video file (1 video file (52 min., 17 sec)) : sound, color.

Access is available to the Yale community.

Access restricted by licensing agreement.

Is it possible that climate change could have kick-started the end of Antiquity? When temperatures drop and the climate becomes drier, the Huns swarm Europe. It’s the last straw and brings about a mass migration that shakes the foundations of the Roman Empire. They abandon cities like London – the ghost-towns of Antiquity. Could this have been enough to herald the beginning of the ‘Dark Ages’ that follow? Historic sources from Byzantium right across to China have a different suggestion, now backed up by new scientific insights: around 536 AD, the Ilopango Volcano in Central America erupts. The eruption is violent and propels ashes right up into the Stratosphere. The result: the sun dims to a blueish hue that struggles to break through the ash-layer. The following 10 years are extraordinarily cold: this is the beginning of the dark middle ages, marked by famine, war, and an almost complete loss of cultural heritage.

Films on demand.

Images / Online / Video & Film

English

May 20, 2019

9 - 12

Earth B.C. (2:05); Empires Grow (5:36); Climate Change (4:34); 536 A.D. (7:06); Volcanic Winter (4:04); Weather around the Equator (3:18); Onset of the Vikings (5:04); Cities Erected (2:19); Kingdoms Established (5:01); Little Ice Age (6:18); In France (1:56); Little Ice Age Ends (2:58); Credits: How Climate Made History: Episode 2 (0:36);

Internet videos.