Krakatoa

Krakatoa East of Java

In August of 1883 an event occurred that would have lasting effects and change the course of world history.  That event was the eruption of Krakatoa, an island in the archipelago of “Krakatau” in Indonesia.

Second, only to the eruption of Tambora on April 10, 1815, the main eruptions of Krakatoa on the 27^th of August 1883 ejected eleven cubic miles of ash into the atmosphere that caused a drop in average worldwide temperatures of 1.2° C (2.2 °F) for 5 years.

Lithograph of the Eruption, 1885 

The dramatic skyline in Edvard Munch's The Scream (1893) is claimed by some historians to be based on the global atmospheric effects as seen by him over Oslofjord, Norway, shortly after the eruptions.

The Scream

The shock wave from the explosion ruptured the eardrums of sailors on their ships ten miles out on the ocean.  The sound of the explosion was heard as far as 2,800 miles away in Perth Australia, and concussive air waves traveled seven times around the world!  The official death toll recorded by the Dutch authorities was 36,417, although some sources put the estimate at 120,000 or more.  Bodies of victims were found floating in the ocean for months after the event and flotillas of volcanic pumice washed ashore on the beaches of Brazil a year after the event; many with animal and human skeletons embedded in them.

Some scholars theorize that it was the worldwide drop in temperature that caused the “Great Blizzard of 1888” (March 11 – March 14, 1888) which paralyzed the Eastern seaboard of the United States.  The Great Blizzard of 1888 was one of the most severe recorded blizzards in the history of the United States of America.  Snowfalls of 20–60 inches fell in parts of New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, and sustained winds of more than 45 miles per hour produced snowdrifts in excess of 50 feet.

Manhattan, 1886 

The worldwide temperature drop is also blamed for what has been termed “The Children’s Blizzard” which caused the “Great Die-Up” of 1886-1887 on the Western Great Plains.  The “Great Die-Up” decimated the cattle industry when 90% of the Northern herds were frozen to death, some while they were still standing.  It was also called “The Children’s Blizzard” because so many children perished in the blinding snowstorms while trying to reach the safety of their homes after being released from school.  Some reports at the time claimed a temperature drop of 100 degrees in a 24 hour period!

A side effect of the “Great Die-Up” was the loss of employment by all the cowboys, whose job it was to take care of all the cattle before they froze to death.  They suddenly found themselves out of work, and many of the large cattle ranches were bankrupted by the calamity.  One of those cattle ranches was the Bar U Ranch, one of the largest commercial ranches of the time, and one of the cowboys at the Bar U was none other than Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid.  Sundance had been in trouble before.  In 1887, Longabaugh stole a gun, horse and saddle from a ranch in Sundance, Wyoming.  While attempting to flee, he was captured by authorities and convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail.  During this jail time, he adopted the nickname of the Sundance Kid.

Suddenly finding himself without a means of support, Sundance (Harry Alonzo Longabaugh) and his wife Etta Place, teamed up with Butch Cassidy and the Wild Bunch and his lifelong criminal career was launched.

Sundance and Etta Place

Front row left to right: Harry A. Longabaugh, alias the Sundance Kid, Ben Kilpatrick, alias the Tall Texan, Robert Leroy Parker, alias Butch Cassidy; Standing: Will Carver & Harvey Logan, alias Kid Curry; Fort Worth, Texas, 1900.

Strange how a volcanic explosion on the other side of the world affected the lives of people on the Great Plains of America.  The disaster at Krakatoa was also the first worldwide event to be reported on the newly laid Trans-Atlantic undersea telegraph cable.

A Broken System

The conditions which surround us best justify our co-operation; we meet in the midst of a nation brought to the verge of moral, political, and material ruin.  Corruption dominates the ballot-box, the legislatures, the Congress, and touches even the ermine of the bench.

The people are demoralized; most of the States have been compelled to isolate the voters at the polling places to prevent universal intimidation and bribery.  The newspapers are largely subsidized or muzzled, public opinion silenced, business prostrated, homes covered with mortgages, labor impoverished, and the land concentrating in the hands of capitalists while imported, pauperized labor beats down wages.

The fruits of the toil of millions are boldly stolen to build up colossal fortunes for a few, unprecedented in the history of mankind; and the possessors of those, in turn, despise the republic and endanger liberty.

From the same prolific womb of governmental injustice we breed the two great classes – tramps and millionaires.

You probably thought I was describing the existing conditions in Washington DC today, but this is an excerpt from the preamble of “The Populist or People’s Party of America,” founded on July 4, 1892.  The Party was founded as a response to the overreach and corruption in government.  Somebody learned from history but it sure wasn’t the voters!

Thank you Logan Moore for this interesting bit of history!