https://www.enjoybloom.com/post/most-stressful-year?lang=enMost Stressful Year in WORLD History
1348 topped the rankings by a wide margin but at least one historian chose each of the following, ranked in order:
1. 1348 – Peak year of the Black Death, which kills a third of the population across Europe and the Middle East – up to 200 million by some estimates.
2. 1944 – The Holocaust at its height; Europe engulfed in war.
3. 1816 – “The Year Without A Summer”: A huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia blocks out the sun, causing devastating crop failures in Europe, China, North America – millions starve.
4. 1644 – The Thirty Years’ War rages in Europe; the Ming Dynasty collapses in China.
5. 410 – The sack of Rome by barbarians; chroniclers believe the end of the world has come.
6. 2020 – The world battles the global pandemic of Covid-19; over a million die.
They also selected the 3 worst in American history:
Worst year in American history
In a separate question, about just American history, 1862 was judged the most stressful year in specifically American history, since the time of the first European settlers.
“That was the darkest year in the Civil War, when it was clear that the price had already been high but the Union might still break apart permanently”, says Philip Parker. It also included battles such as Antietam, the bloodiest single day in US military history, which took a terrible toll on both sides.
Its nearest rivals for the title of America’s most stressful year were 1929, when the Wall Street Stock Market crash sparked the start of the Great Depression; and 1838, when the still new United States started pushing many Cherokees out from their lands in mid-winter on the murderous trek known as the “Trail of Tears”.
