Krakatoa

August 27, 1883 – Krakatoa was a small uninhabited island in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra. The island was lush with vegetation, and jutting out of it were three volcanic mountains, the tallest rose around 2,700 feet.

At 10:02 in the morning on this date, Krakatoa exploded in a cataclysmic eruption that was heard 3,000 miles away. One eyewitness recalled: “A fearful sound was heard. It was not thunder, nor the firing of cannon, but the roaring of the earth itself. The sky grew blacker than night.”

The colossal blast triggered tsunami waves over 130 feet high that wiped out coastal towns in Java and Sumatra. The death toll is estimated between 36,000 and 40,000, but those numbers are probably conservative.

The millions of tons of debris that were ejected into the stratosphere (50 miles high) would dim the sunlight around the world and drop global temperatures by over 2 degrees.