Researchers believe they have pinpointed the worst time to be alive on Earth.
Wading through history and looking at some of the worst liveable moments to be on the planet, researchers say new evidence has helped them to determine when the worst time to live on the earth would have been.
The year 536 AD has been announced as the date, with researchers hailing it as “one of the worst periods to be alive”.
Michael McCormick, historian and archaeologist, told Science Magazine: “It was the beginning of one of the worst periods to be alive, if not the worst year”.
At this point in time, the earth would have been in a terrible state because of the lack of sunlight that was displayed.
The earth was plunged into darkness for about 18 months during this time frame, as a thick cloud blocked the sun.
This caused crops to fail, temperatures to drop and famine.
In summer, temperatures would have fell between 1.5C and 2.5C and the decade that followed would be the coldest of the previous 2,300 years.
A team led by Mr McCormick, chair of the Harvard University initiative for the science of the human past, and glaciologist Paul Mayewski, of the climate change institute of the University of Maine (UM) in Orono, found an enormous volcanic eruption in Iceland was likely to blame for the sun being covered.
The researchers' paper, published in Antiquity journal, reports evidence of a huge volcanic eruption just a few years before this icy period.
