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The headline says trigger, but the article (and the subheading!) makes a case that a series of eruptions was a knock-out blow. I guess that's in keeping with Be
by oldmanjay 11y ago
The headline says trigger, but the article (and the subheading!) makes a case that a series of eruptions was a knock-out blow. I guess that's in keeping with Betteridge's law, so the answer to the headline's question can remain "no."
- dang 11y agoOk, we replaced that bit with language from the subtitle. I believe Mr. Betteridge has retired.
- mlinksva 11y agoMakes even less sense than that. The Western Roman Empire finally fell in 476, these eruptions were in 535/6 and 539 and refer to events in the Eastern Roman Empire, which definitely did not suffer a knock-out blow at the time, or fall for another 900 years! Added: linked article justifies this being about the Roman Empire with "Historians have variously dated the final collapse to the sack of Rome in AD410 by the Visigoth king Alaric, the deposing of the last Roman emperor by the German chieftain Odoacer in AD476 and the death of Justinian I, the last Roman emperor to try to reconquer the western half of the empire, in AD565."
- joshvm 11y agoIt seems like we've showed that the blackout in the sky that occurred around that time was almost certainly due to a volcanic eruption in North America. Whether it was a significant factor in the fall of the empire is still up for debate.