1942: Firebombing Raids During WW2
Being anywhere in the world during the Second World War would be a bad time for most people, though that was especially true for the countries that lost. The main areas of both Germany and Japan were levelled to the ground, mostly to send a message than any real military objective.While it’s the nukes that get the most coverage, the firebombing raids of Tokyo are still known as the bloodiest bombing raid in military history, and possibly killed many more than both the nukes combined. Military-grade incendiary material—like napalm and petroleum jelly—was indiscriminately used on civilian areas (especially civilian areas, actually). For anyone living in Tokyo (or Dresden to a lesser extent), it would have been a scene right out of a horror movie. Charred remains of people on the streets, wooden houses set on fire in every direction, and the sound of bombers continuously prowling the air. As many as 100,000 civilians were burnt to death in just one night of bombing, with over a million maimed.
1947: The Partition Of India
As most of us have realized by now, the British Empire had a partition problem. Many modern world issues exist because the Brits decided to have fun with their borders before leaving their colonies, making things even more complicated for the independent countries. Nowhere is that more visible than in the partition of India into the countries of India and Pakistan on religious lines. Overnight, millions of people embarked on one of the biggest and most perilous mass migrations in history. That is, of course, if they could leave at all.Many of the Muslims in India, and conversely Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan, weren’t that lucky. Around 1 million died in the ensuing riots that included horrors like literal trains full of dead bodies. They were one of the bloodiest riots in history, and true numbers of the casualties would probably never be known due to lack of records.
Being A Miner In Ancient Rome
Everyone knows that slavery was big during Roman times. Slave labor made the empire possible, as building all those aqueducts and other advanced architecture across a vast territory isn’t easy. Slavery took a lot of diverse forms in the ancient Roman Republic according to what they did, and slaves were mostly taken from conquered territories. If you’re looking for having the worst time of your life in Roman times, you could opt for being a slave in the mines. Reserved for the slaves the Romans particularly hated, it was just about the worst thing that could happen to you. The working conditions were horrible, and whoever was sent to the mines was expected to die there. There was rampant disease and deaths due to the harsh conditions, as mining wasn’t the most developed technology back then. Mind you, this is not an exclusive punishment. You could also be mutilated and beaten for no reason, too, or just thrown into a pit with a wild animal. Anything goes in the mines, and all you needed to find yourself in there was simply existing anywhere around the Roman empire.
1467 – 1600: The Sengoku Period
The Sengoku Period – lasting over a hundred years—was one of the most defining parts of Japanese history, as well as one of the most influential. A lot of historical Japanese pop culture is set in that period, as it was a time of consistent war and rapidly-shifting political climate. There were more warlords fighting for territory than you could count, as the central power of the Shogun had weakened in recent times.For someone living in that period, war and suffering would have been a part of daily life. Apart from opposing factions regularly raiding villages and towns for supplies, civilians were often caught between battles they had nothing to do with. Of course, that wasn’t the case in every village across Japan, as many of them thrived due to the shifting landscape, too. For those caught between the battles or the just lost in vast swathes of ungoverned Japanese terrain, though, it was a dangerous time to be in. The period was noteworthy for its brutality and general disregard for human life, and gave way to some of the most fearsome samurai warriors in Japanese history.
The Year 536
When us laymen talk about the worst times in history, we’re thinking of stuff like violence and proximity to cannibalism. We don’t have any scientific parameters to measure how bad a time is for the people living in it, though we can make educated guesses.When it comes to scientists, though, they don’t bother with guesses or estimates, and have calculated the exact year it was the worst time to be alive in history; the year 536. Apart from the falling empires the world over and general political chaos, the year 536 also marked one of the worst global famines in human history. The famine was due to ash in the air blocking the sunlight, which isn’t surprising as there were also quite a few humongous volcanic eruptions around that time for good measure. The ‘foggy eclipse of the Sun’, as it was described then, was visible everywhere in the world, giving the whole thing an even creepier vibe. Combine that with brutal conflicts in many places around the world, and you know why the researchers chose the year 536 to be the absolute worst one in history.