https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGh...
Or how 536 was the worst year on record (and no one really knows why)
https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGh...
Although I didn't listen to the 11 minute podcast, I was curious to know basically what it was about. This is what Wikipedia says about year 536:
"In 2018, medieval scholar Michael McCormick nominated 536 as 'the worst year to be alive' because of the extreme weather events probably caused by a volcanic eruption early in the year, causing average temperatures in Europe and China to decline and resulting in crop failures and famine for well over a year. Other researchers have noted additional adverse events during the year, including a mysterious fog, possibly due to the volcanic eruption."[1]
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter_of_536
Whether it was “the worst year in history” is probably tough to quantify and prove, though.
A partial list is: tsunamis, earthquakes, volcanoes, supervolcanoes, flood basalts, asteroid impacts, magnetic field reversals, climate change (eg ice once covered the equator, North America used to be covered in an ice sheet a mile thick not that long ago), particles in the atmosphere blocking the Sun, supernovas, gamma ray bursts, solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
It's kind of amazing we're here at all.