The Watchman
7th March 2010, seh,mgh
This Article: (11 Pages)
- 1. Watch with me one hour
- 2. 1492 'thunder stone' Ensisheim Meteor
- 3. Lisbon, Portugal, Earthquake-1755
- 4. Laki or Lakagígar 1783,... Dark Day 1789
- 5. Krakatoa 1883
- 6. Tunguska Explosion Heralding World... War 1 1908
- 7. Dramatic Years 1947-1948
- 8. Surtsey Volcano 1963-1973
- 9. Earthquakes in Divers places... 1988-1989
- 10. 20 Years of Change 1989-2009
- 11. The Future
4) Laki or Lakagígar 1783, Dark Day 1789
The great Lisbon Earthquake heralded the Earthquake of the French revolution, and was the first in a series of events.
1772 - Papandayan, a great mountain volcano erupted and collapsed in Java.
On 11th and 12th of August the mountain was covered in a lumious cloud, then the mountain trembled and fell into a huge undergound gulf 15 miles long and 6 wide. 40 villages were destoryed and though the people ran in fear, 3,000 people were not fast enough and died.
1780 – West Indies Hurricane
Towards the end of the American war of Independence which influenced the Freach Revolution, on the 10th October a Hurricane caused the English fleet at St Lucia to disappear and a convoy of French transports of 40 ships sank with 4,000 sailors.
1783 - Eruption Lakagigar, Skaptar jokul Iceland
Fissures opened in the ground on 8th June 1783, in a huge eruption that released huge volumes of material into the atmosphere and poisonous vapours (sulfur dioxide and hydrogen flouride). In freak winds the ash and sulfur vapour were spread over Europe particularly affecting France where many died seemingly inexplicably in the haze with deaths up 5% and then into England where the haze killed possibly 23,000 labourers in a very still hot summer. There were severe thunderstorms and hail, but the hot summer was followed by a very long cold winter. The seasons were disrupted for 10 years with extremes. Gilbert White in England noted,
'The summer of the year 1783 was an amazing and portentous one, and full of horrible phaenomena; for besides the alarming meteors and tremendous thunder-storms that affrighted and distressed .. The sun, at noon, looked as blank as a clouded moon, and shed a rust- coloured ferruginous light on the ground, and floors of rooms; but was particularly lurid and blood-coloured at rising and setting. .. The country people began to look, with a superstitious awe, at the red, louring aspect of the sun'
1783 - Eruption Mt Asama Japan, killing 20,000 and intensifying famine in Japan and global volcanic ash cloud. Isaac Titsingh's account was of Asama-yama eruption first to reach English.
1783 - Earthquake, Calabria, Italy with 1,187 aftershocks killing 60,000.
1788 - Appalling Hailstorm in France affected 1,039 communes adding to the hardship in France.
1789 - Dark day over New England
On 19th May it is thought smoke, fog and cloud made a day when from noon there was no light over all of New England from Maine to New Jersey. For days before, the sun appeared red and sky yellow. In the darkness soot was observed to fall in rain water, at night time the moon appeared red. Many interpreted, it as the day of judgement.
From the 5th of May that year in France the Political order of the Sun kings (sun) and religious power (moon) was begun to be judged and made dark, by July the fragile order of May had become the French Revolution.
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