Annus Horribilis: Gilbert White, an English naturalist, recounts the series of “bad luck” that befell humanity that year: a dry, foul-smelling fog that glows at night spreads from Sicily across Europe, accompanied by thunderstorms and natural disasters; an earthquake in Calabria kills 30,000 people; an eruption in Iceland kills 9,500 people, a fifth of the island’s population at the time; in Japan, 1,000 people die when a volcanic eruption blocks the flow of a river; in England, a brilliant fireball lights up the sky and then explodes in mid-air; and finally, England suffers a wasp invasion.
