#history
The Great Frost.
1709 is forever rembered in history as the year of the devastating cold winter. Europe was plunged into freezing cold weather. The resultant famine caused the death of half a million people in France alone.
“The cold here is so fierce that it fairly defies description. I am sitting by a roaring fire, have a screen before the door, which is closed, so that I can sit here with a fur around my neck . . . and I am still shivering and can barely hold the pen. Never in my life have I seen a winter such as this one…”
– Elizabeth Charlotte, Duchess of Orleans at Versailles, France, 1709.
“I believe the Frost was greater (if not more universal also) than any other within the Memory of Man.”
– William Derham.
During the freezing-cold spell it was reported that birds fell from the sky and corpses were frozen into their bedsheets; lakes, rivers, and the Baltic Sea froze over, and people ice-skated on the Venetian Lagoon; livestock died frozen in barns; herbs and exotic fruit trees died, as did hardy oak and ash trees; bread froze so hard it took an axe to cut through it; chicken combs froze solid and fell off; soil apparently froze to a depth of a few feet, and trees cracked and exploded as their sap froze.
The freezing conditions started in late 1708 but in early January 1709 temperatures plummeted. The temperature in some places dropped to as low as -5 Fahrenheit (-20 Celsius).
In England temperatures of 10 Fahrenheit (-12 Celsius) were recorded. Although colder temperatures have been recorded, these conditions persisted for three months.
It was known as the “Great Frost” in England and “Le Grand Hiver” (the Great Winter) in France.
It was one of the coldest European winters in the past 500 years and was followed by a thaw that caused floods in England; in France it was followed by famine that killed an estimated half a million or more.
The Great Frost occurred during the Maunder Minimum, a period of low sunspot activity between 1645-1715, during the “Little Ice Age”.
photos:
1.The Lagoon of Venice frozen over.
– Artist: Gabriele Bella
