The worst Century?

[Abulafia]

Yeah, things have pretty much always sucked for a lot of the world.

Prostitution, the oldest profession in the world.

How they managed to pay them in those days, I don't know.

 

[Mapache]

20th century wasn't bad for those who lived in Latin America. And it was pretty nice for North Americans, too.
Probably the 6th century was the worst. :thumbdown

 

[Provolution]

14th Century no doubt, that was a bloody biological massacre.

 

[Abulafia]

The sixth Century? Why?

 

[Kafka2]

In 535 and 536 AD there was no summer. It just didn't happen. Plague ravages the Roman empire, destabilising it. Drought upsets the balance of power in Mongolia, causing the Avar to be overthrown and displaced by their Turkish vassals. The Avar head west, recovering strength as time passes and end up giving the Eastern Empire a right good scragging.

Meanwhile the Roman plague travels along their trade routes causing major plague in Britain. The weakened Britons promptly get displaced by the Saxons.

Appalling, decade-long droughts and famine in central America causes collapse of civilisations. The same happens throughout Asia- check out China for an example. It was kicking off absolutely everywhere. Modern history starts at 535AD. It wasn't a pleasant time to live in.

 

[Abulafia]

And to make Provolution happy the 535 AD incident resulted in starvation in Yemen which drove Mr and Mrs Prophet north into Saudi Arabia where they had a son, named him Mohammed, and the tenet of Islam was told by Allah.

Catastrophe?

 

[Kafka2]

I knew I'd missed at least one. Yes- the collapse of the Saba culture in Yemen. That happened due to climactic upheaval destroying the immense dam that irrigated the desert.

 

[gustavope]

I don't know the worst century, but I know that the 2 centuries after the Americas were “discovered” by the Europeans was terrible.

1-Millions of natives Americans were killed, more then the holocausts, WWW1 and 2
It was a big massacre.

2-Getting Africans to be slave in the Americas. Thousand were carrier in ships, in places that today someone did the something with cattle, the person will spend the rest of live in the jail.

3-And was happening some war in Asia

 

[Sarevok]

I also reckon that the 20th Century was the worst century in the history of the world, and I'm pretty sure that when this one is done with, the 21st will trounce that.

most likely

 

[Smellincoffee]

Well, that whole "getting kicked out of Paradise" problem Adam and Eve had was pretty rough, too.

 

[Kafka2]

There must have been a fairly nasty period round about 73,000 BC when we nearly became extinct, but it was probably a bit short of civilisations collapsing.

 

[JohnRM]

My first thought was the 14th Century, of course. After reading a certain post, I would agree that the next worst is surely the 21st Century, so far.

 

[Xen]

The high time was when the Northern Europe threw teh gluttoned French, Italian and Spanish papal officials out and cut all money transfers south. At that time the North of Europe sprung to the occasion and vastly outcompeted Southern Europe.
Following the Black Plague, the Vatican had played out its role, and did more harm than good, which is why Northern Europe eventually threw them out and built futurist powerhouses which won the world.

sorry for not checking in on yoru retort, los tinteres tin the thread, but wa scurious to see if thier was a reply; I'mpelased to see thie ris
if "by vastlly outcompeted southern europe", then you can explain why the renassance, and rebirth fo civlization and innovation began down thier, in the very backyar dof papal rule? pewhaps your northern european powerhouses were the conqerors of the new world? No? oh yes, that right, it was tyhe spanish and portugese who trialbalzed across unknown lands; and the english -barelly- got the scraps left over, and onyl through the forune of good managment where the english able to make them anwhere near successful.

so lets see; they didnt contribute to the initization of reocmign fo civlized life to europe, they didnt make untol conquests and explorations int he new world until eveyrone new the new wolrd was thier, and lets not forget, they didnt dominate europe at all, out side thier self repsecting regions; for lets not forget those same gluttoned frenchmen aslo swept over all continental europe with glorious armies, and it was through only Napoleons own folly that his empire fell; for if he had continued improing his strategy, and adjuste dit to compete with desperate rivals who struggled to do the same, he coudl have snapped the rest of europe in two, and then procce dot conqoure them both.

of all northern eurpe, britna is th eonly real expample of a nation that coudl be called a "powerhouse" for any long period of time; the baltic natiosn haver neve rbeen more then regional players, the germans have had thier timee in the limelight, but to be snuffed out, usually because everyoen arounds them seems to consider them bigger bastards then every one around france considers the french bastard; asutria is the last candidate, but its fortune wer ebuilt on the back of eastern europe, and moreover stayed catholic

 

[Kafka2]

Open query- do you think your chances of living a long, full and happy life are better now than they were in the 6th or 14th century?

 

[mrtn]

Open query- do you think your chances of living a long, full and happy life are better now than they were in the 6th or 14th century?

Of course I have it easier now, I even have running fresh water in my apartment!
On the other hand there's much more people around now, so there are still plenty of opportunity for poverty and people getting the butt end of life. And I'll get to watch them starve on TV...

 

[Provolution]

Of course we are happier now, but we would probably see a vast polarization between nations that can administer natural resources and population control to those who don't.
Please integrate that. The collapse 14 century must have been considered more traumatic than the sixth century, due to the massive reduction of population (30-40 % in 5 years) and the collapse of organization and living standards. 1345 Europe was in many ways more civilized than the 5th century, even though there was feudalism. The collapse of our Western 21 Century would be the most immense collapse of relative living conditions, if the Malthusian demographic monster takes us out.

More so, I insist that the Northern European civilization is more powerful on the delivery than the Southern European civilization, in GDP per capita, technology, patents, literacy ratio, population control, nobel prizes, construction projects and so on.

 

[Kafka2]

The collapse 14 century must have been considered more traumatic than the sixth century, due to the massive reduction of population (30-40 % in 5 years) and the collapse of organization and living standards.

Well we don't know how many people died of plague in the 6th century, but it was certainly a high number. Furthermore, the 14th century collapses were pretty much confined to Europe and sectors of Asia. The 6th century climactic upheavals hit the Americas hard too, as well as the full expanse of Asia and every part of Africa we can assess. It was a global catastrophe.

 

[Provolution]

America was hardly populated around the sixth century and there is no evidence on Africa. 14 Century wins by clear margins, as it affected the center of global civilization.
The fact that America was discovered as late as the 15 century, not the other way around, is the very proof that the 14 century was the most decisive century.

Yet I may agree that the sixth century is a runner up and in the top three.

I disagree with those advoating the 20 century, all those deaths is made up by the relative progress. For me, patents and advances count for more than souls.

 

[amadeus]

They were all pretty bad prior to the 20th.

 

[Kafka2]

The fact that America was discovered as late as the 15 century, not the other way around, is the very proof that the 14 century was the most decisive century.

You lost me there....