We'd rather be writing about the long, hot summer, but we'll take what we can get.

This occurred to us while leaning on a snow shovel…er, energetically removing icy slush from the pavement: how has Western civilisation fared with its cold winters? And why couldn't we have stayed in the Mediterranean region, anyway? Those Greeks and Romans had the right idea. Never live anywhere where the snowfall is measured in feet. Or meters.

Try this quiz on nasty white weather. Short answers.

1. Where was the Frost Fair of 1607 held, and why?
2. What highly intellectual film features Elizabethans on ice skates?
3. Why was the Danish defeat in 1658 the result of strange weather?
4. What happened in New England on 13 July 1816 that didn't usually happen in the summer?
5. What caused all the weird weather in Europe and New England in 1816, anyway?
6. What meteorological phenomenon do some scientist blame on the Black Death?
7. Speaking of widespread devastation, what two things killed so many people in Europe in the winter of 1944/45?
8. Who wrote a novel about the harrowing winter of 1880-1881 in South Dakota, and what was it called?
9. What was strange about the 1936 North American cold wave?
10. What unusual sight was found in South-West England and Wales in the final days of 1962?

Okay, those questions make you cold just reading them. Click below for answers, while I got and turn up the thermostat.

Dmitri Gheorgheni

16.03.15 Front Page

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