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The year that just ended may have been the most traumatic that most of us can remember, but it is not the most stressful year ever, according to an international panel of historians asked to judge the matter.
That title belongs to 1862, the darkest year of the Civil War, which has been deemed the most stressful in U.S. history by the 28 American and British historians consulted by Bloom, a self-therapy app.
1348, meanwhile, has been judged the worst year in world history, since it saw the peak of the Black Death, which killed some third of the population of Europe and the Middle East.
Most Stressful Years in U.S. History
At least one historian chose each of the following years, ranked in order of which years were chosen by the most historians:
1. 1862 – The darkest year of the Civil War, when it was clear the price paid had already been high, but the Union might still break apart permanently.
2. 1929 – The Wall Street Stock Market crash sparked the start of the Great Depression that would last much of the 1930s.
3. 1838 – The still-new U.S. starts pushing thousands of Cherokees out from their lands in midwinter on the murderous trek known as the “Trail of Tears”; thousands die.
4. 1919 – This year included the Spanish Flu (which killed 675,000 Americans), race riots, labor strikes, and the start of Prohibition, all with the U.S. still reeling from the trauma of World War I.
5. 1968 – A year of riots, protests, violence, and the assassinations of both Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.
6. 1962 – The year of the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Cold War almost turned hot.
7. 2001 – America was shaken by the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the U.S. mainland.
8. 2020 – America recorded more COVID-19 deaths than any country as unemployment soared, political divides worsened, and the presidential election was supremely bitter.
Most Stressful Years in World History
1348 was the clear winner, but at least one historian chose each of the following years, ranked in order:
1. 1348 – Peak year of the Black Death, which killed a third of the population across Europe and the Middle East — up to 200 million died.
2. 1944 – The Holocaust at its height; Europe engulfed in war.
3. 1816 – “The Year Without A Summer”: A huge volcanic eruption in Indonesia blocked out the sun, causing devastating crop failures in Europe, China, and North America; millions starved.
4. 1644 – The Thirty Years’ War raged in Europe; the Ming Dynasty collapsed in China.
5. 410 – The sack of Rome by barbarians; chroniclers believed the end of the world had come.
6. 2020 – The world battled the global pandemic of COVID-19; over a million died.
“2020 has been the perfect storm of stress,” says Dr. Seth Gillihan, clinical psychologist, author, and Bloom’s head of therapy.
“It’s brought disease, deaths, lockdowns, job losses, and financial stress, plus culture wars and bitter political divisions. The only small consolation might be that we now have better tools than we used to for dealing with it.”
The 28 historians consulted by Bloom were from universities including Yale, Stanford, Cornell, Chicago, and John Hopkins in the U.S., and Oxford, Cambridge, London Manchester, and Nottingham in the U.K., plus some independent historical authors.
“The devastation wrought by the Black Death in 1348 was so absolute that it was hard to choose any other year as the worst in world or British history,” says Philip Parker, consultant historian on the study.
Parker drew up three separate lists of at least 10 candidates for the title of “most stressful year” in the history of, respectively, the world; of what is now Britain, from the dawn of recorded history; and of what is now the United States, from the time of the first European settlers.
Participating historians were asked to pick the one year that, in their opinion, was “likely to have been the toughest, most difficult, and most stressful individual year for those who lived through it.”
The earliest year in Parker’s list of 10 candidates for the most stressful in world history was 1177 BC — the year of the Late Bronze Age collapse, when the Sea Peoples invaded the New Kingdom of Egypt as part of a wave of nomad invasion that devastated the Assyrians, Hittites, and other major cultures of the Near East and heralded an age of chaos.
The most recent year was 2020, when the world fought the global pandemic of COVID-19 and suffered over a million deaths, combined with huge economic and social disruption.
Bloom is the self-therapy app that uses personalized video sessions to help users cope with stress, anxiety, and depression. www.enjoybloom.com