Born Then1783–1785
Life during the Laki eruption and the Haze Famine
Be born in a place it hit, a few years before it began, and see what it did to five ordinary lives.
What it meant for ordinary people
In June 1783 the Laki fissure in southern Iceland began an eight-month eruption that poured out lava and huge amounts of fluorine and sulphur gas. The poisoned grass killed most of Iceland's sheep, horses and cattle, and the famine that followed killed about a fifth of the people. Denmark briefly considered moving the survivors.
Deaths: about 9,000 people, a fifth of Iceland's population; most of the livestock died.
How hard it hits each person in the game (risk of death, of being conscripted, of leaving) comes from scholarly estimates.
Around the same time
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- Atlantic slave trade (West Africa) 1501–1799
- Atlantic slave trade (Kongo and Angola) 1514–1799
- Plantation slavery in Brazil 1550–1799
- Tokugawa peace 1603–1780
- Sugar slavery in the Caribbean 1640–1799
- Slavery in the British North American colonies 1660–1799
- Burmese–Siamese War and fall of Ayutthaya 1765–1767
- Bengal famine of 1770 1769–1771
- Spanish missions in California 1769–1799
- Great Tenmei famine 1782–1788
- Laki haze and the cold winter of 1783–1784 1783–1784
- Laki eruption and the Haze Famine 1783–1785
- Smallpox epidemic around Sydney 1789–1790
- Atlantic slave trade, final decades 1800–1866
- Slavery in the United States 1800–1865
- Slavery in Brazil 1800–1888
- Serfdom in the Russian Empire 1800–1861
- Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815
- Fulani War and the Sokoto Caliphate 1804–1808