April 10, 1815 by Michael Ceraolo

 April 10, 1815

In the Indonesian archipelago

the top three thousand feet of a mountain

was blown off,

                       ejecting

smoke, ash, and acid into the atmosphere,

killing tens of thousands of people

and more than that number of animals

and causing massive devastation in the area

And the devastation was not limited

to the immediate area or time

The cloud of smoke and ash

would travel around the world

The next year would be known

in the Northern Hemisphere as

The Year without a Summer:

heavy snows in June

frosts in July and August

"the seasons . . .very unlike what they had formerly been"

"the most adverse to agriculture

which had ever been known"

                                            with

"No prospect of crops"

Some of the subsequent years would be almost as cold

And a few more people were now convinced

that smoke in the air could affect the weather