The Summer That Created Frankenstein

Name: The Summer That Created Frankenstein
Genre: Documentary

Cold rain traps Mary Shelley and Lord Byron indoors, where Tambora’s darkened weather enters literary history.

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Transcript

In 1815, Tambora’s first explosions were mistaken for distant cannon fire.
Tambora stood on Sumbawa as one of Indonesia’s tallest mountains before the eruption.
The mountain had been active between 1812 and 1815, then began rumbling on April 5th.
First explosions were heard on April 5th; ash began falling in East Java on April 6th.
On April 10th, three eruption plumes rose and merged.
Pyroclastic flows swept down every side, reaching the sea and triggering tsunamis.
The eruption cut Tambora from 14,100 feet to just under 10,000 feet.
The eruption reduced incident sunlight at Earth’s surface.
In 1816, snow fell across New England during July, while crops failed under frost.
At Lake Geneva, constant rain kept Mary Shelley, Byron, and Percy Shelley indoors.
Lord Byron wrote Darkness; the cold and wet summer of 1816 kept Mary Shelley indoors writing Frankenstein.
The “Year Without a Summer” is believed to have inspired both works of literature.
Those pages carried Tambora’s climate shock far beyond Lake Geneva.
That impact was recorded too: the Rajah of Sanggar saw the mountain as liquid fire.
In 2004, scientists discovered remains of a village;
two adults were found under about 10 feet, or 3 meters, of ash.
Tambora’s estimated peak, about 13,100 feet, was removed, leaving a 3.7-mile caldera.
fumaroles remain active.

The skies eventually cleared, but Tambora’s summit was still missing—and its vast crater was not entirely quiet.

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