From the storm that wrecked the Spanish Armada and the fog that helped George Washington escape, to the dust storms that spurred migration and the clear skies that enabled JFK’s assassination, quirks of weather have profoundly influenced human history. By combing through the archives, we can see how everything from tempests to heatwaves have shaped the world as we know it.
Click through this gallery to discover 30 world weather events that have changed the course of history...
Forecasting the weather is not just a modern phenomenon. More than 2,500 years ago, when the Persian Empire was on course to overrun ancient Greece, Athenian commander Themistocles put his knowledge of weather patterns to good use in the Battle of Salamis. He lured the Persians into the narrow straits of Salamis, where the Greeks' smaller, more agile ships had the upper hand, then took advantage of the Etesian northwesterly winds, which disrupted the Persian fleet and prevented them from retreating to open water. This led to a Greek victory, altering the course of Western civilisation.
The Roman Empire stretched from northern Europe to North Africa, but a bout of bad weather was all it took to thwart its soldiers at the Battle of Teutoburg Forest in northwest Germany. Arminius, a Germanic chieftain and former Roman ally, tricked Varus into leading his troops into the dense forest by claiming there was a rebellion to suppress. Days of heavy rainfall left the Roman soldiers wading through deep mud, slowing them down and disrupting their formation. Their shields were soaked, their bows useless – and Arminius's forces took full advantage, wiping out three Roman legions. This defeat dealt a major blow to Emperor Augustus and halted Roman expansion into Germania.
In an early example of climate change, recent research shows that the Maya civilisation’s collapse in the 9th century was largely driven by severe droughts, likely worsened by their slash-and-burn farming practices. This contributed to a 70% drop in rainfall, leading to water shortages and crop failures. As conditions deteriorated, leaders struggled to maintain control, and the people prayed to the rain god Chaac (pictured) for relief. The droughts ultimately caused widespread unrest, forcing the abandonment of many Maya city states by the end of the century.
When Mongol emperor Kublai Khan (pictured) – grandson of Genghis Khan – decided to invade Japan in 1274 and again in 1281, he amassed the largest seafaring fleets the world had ever seen in the waters off the island of Kyushu. But Mother Nature intervened as a massive tropical typhoon hit the Mongol fleet on both occasions, killing Kublai’s troops and quite possibly saving Japan. The tale took on mythic status and the ‘kamikaze’ (divine wind), became so famous that it went on to lend its name to the suicide pilots of the Second World War.
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Not content with extending his influence in the east, Ottoman ruler Suleiman the Magnificent set his sights on Europe, marching troops towards the Austrian capital in 1529 to challenge Archduke Ferdinand I. But what he hadn’t counted on was the heavy rain that would plague the battalion all the way from the Black Sea to the gates of Vienna, forcing them to abandon essential artillery in the mud and contributing to outbreaks of disease among the troops. The siege failed and the Ottomans never managed to conquer the city.
This is arguably the most famous example of how a simple storm can change the course of history forever. In 1588, King Philip II of Spain sent 130 ships ('the Spanish Armada') to invade England, aiming to restore Catholicism in the country. After a series of naval skirmishes with the English, storms became the decisive factor as the Spanish fleet attempted to return home by sailing around Scotland and Ireland. These fierce storms wreaked havoc on the Armada, destroying about half of the ships and leading to the deaths of roughly 15,000 troops. The English hailed the defeat as a Protestant victory, and it marked a turning point that eventually saw England rise as a global naval power.
The arrival of the Mayflower at Plymouth Rock is a landmark moment in US history – but the ship was never meant to land in Massachusetts. After departing from Plymouth, England, on 16 September 1620, the emigrants were, in fact, heading for Virginia where another English colony had been established at Jamestown. But a rogue storm blew through the Atlantic and carried them more than 500 miles (800km) off course to the tip of Cape Cod, New England, instead. The Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, establishing the first permanent European colony in New England, a shift that profoundly influenced the early history of the future United States.
The diary of Samuel Pepys records that 7 June 1666 was 'the hottest day that I have ever felt in my life'. That might have been welcome news at first, after a particularly harsh winter in 1665-66, but the prolonged spell of hot, dry weather left London like a tinderbox. And so on 2 September, when Thomas Farrinor left his bakery in Pudding Lane with the ovens still smouldering, a fire broke out that raged for four days, leaving 100,000 people homeless and reducing the Guildhall and St Paul’s Cathedral to ashes.
We all get a bit cranky when it’s cold outside, but the people of Salem, Massachusetts, took griping about the weather to a whole new level. The Little Ice Age – an era of colder temperatures and climatic instability, which peaked in the late 17th century – hit grain harvests all over the world. With their supposed ability to control the weather, ‘witches’ soon got the blame, with more than 200 women prosecuted in 1692-93.
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The course of the American Revolution might have been very different, if it weren’t for a sudden onset of fog that hid George Washington from enemy eyes. During the Battle of Long Island in August 1776 (pictured), the general was facing defeat by the British and decided to pull his troops back across the East River to Manhattan. But dawn came before he could get them – and himself – to safety, until a thick fog rolled over the river. They were able to escape unscathed, ready to fight another day.
This year is believed to have been the worst in Caribbean history, with three deadly hurricanes in just one season. The first made landfall in Barbados on 9 October, moving on to Martinique, St Lucia, Puerto Rico and Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic), causing more than 20,000 deaths. It was followed by more devastating storms in Jamaica and on the Florida coast, devastating Caribbean colonies, weakening British and French naval forces and disrupting the sugar economy, which indirectly impacted the balance of power during the American Revolutionary War.
The effects of the Little Ice Age were felt not just in the US but across Europe, contributing to widespread crop failures. This hardship was worsened by the 1783 eruption of the Laki volcano in Iceland, which released massive amounts of sulphur dioxide, creating a 'dry fog' that lowered temperatures and further damaged crops across the continent. France, already facing economic troubles, was hit especially hard. A brutal winter in 1788-1789, followed by a scorching summer, devastated crops and left the population starving. These dire conditions helped to fuel public unrest, contributing to the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 and the outbreak of the French Revolution.
In the summer of 1800, Gabriel Prosser, an enslaved blacksmith from the Brookfield tobacco plantation in Henrico County, Virginia, planned one of the largest slave uprisings in American history. The rebellion, set for 30 August, aimed to capture Richmond and hold Governor James Monroe hostage to negotiate freedom for Virginia’s enslaved people. However, a severe thunderstorm flooded roads and forced a 24-hour delay, giving time for the plot to be leaked and stopping the rebellion before it began. Prosser was among 26 people executed for their roles in the revolt.
When Napoleon Bonaparte set his sights on invading Russia in June 1812, marching hundreds of thousands of troops into Moscow, he had no idea it would end in humiliating defeat not at the hands of the enemy, but at the hands of the Russian winter. Food was scarce, the troops were undisciplined and by the time the unusually early snows set in there were horrific stories of soldiers sheltering in the carcasses of dead animals. Napoleon was forced to retreat (pictured) and returned to Paris with the little that was left of his Grand Armee.
It seems Napoleon didn’t learn his lesson in Russia, because just a few years later he made another meteorological misstep. At the decisive Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815, heavy rains had softened the ground around the Belgian village the night before. Fearing his cavalry and artillery would get bogged down in the mud, he held off until midday to launch his first sortie – which gave the Prussian army more time to arrive. By mid-afternoon, they had come to bolster Allied forces, ultimately leading to the French emperor’s defeat.
There are good summers and bad, but in 1816, the season disappeared altogether. Known as 'the Year Without a Summer', this dramatic drop in temperatures was triggered by the eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, which sent volcanic ash and aerosols into the atmosphere, blocking sunlight. The resulting cooling – compounded by the lingering effects of the Little Ice Age – led to widespread crop failures across Europe and North America. In New England, the harsh conditions drove many families westward in search of fertile land, sparking a wave of migration into the Midwest that accelerated the settlement of America's heartland.
Before the Great Famine, Ireland’s population had been growing rapidly, reaching 8.5 million by the mid-1840s. However, the wet, humid summer of 1845 created the perfect conditions for a disaster. Potato blight, a fungal disease carried by airborne spores, took hold and was washed into the soil by heavy rains, ruining the potato crop. This triggered a catastrophic famine, causing mass starvation, disease and widespread emigration. Over the next 50 years, Ireland’s population fell by more than half, forever altering the country's demographic and cultural landscape.
In Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens accurately described the Thames as 'a deadly sewer...in the place of a fine, fresh river', a view shared by many Londoners during the infamous Great Stink of 1858. That summer, scorching temperatures combined with untreated sewage in the Thames to create a stench so overwhelming that it could be smelled miles away. The public outcry and unbearable conditions, including within Parliament, spurred the government to act quickly, passing a bill to fund a new sewer system in just 18 days. Designed by Joseph Bazalgette, the sewage system built in response to the Great Stink remains a vital part of London's infrastructure today.
Several possible inspirations have been suggested for Edvard Munch’s famous artwork The Scream, including the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in Indonesia and the ripple effect it had around the world. But more recent studies have suggested that ‘mother-of-pearl’ clouds – high-altitude clouds with iridescent colours, which can occur in Munch's native Norway – are a more likely explanation for the work that helped shape the modernist art movement.
Galveston was once the richest city in Texas – and the third most prosperous in the country – but its low-lying location off the coast means it is particularly susceptible to inclement weather. On 8 September 1900 the deadliest hurricane in US history swept in from the Gulf of Mexico, leaving some 8,000 people dead and many of Galveston’s buildings in ruins – opening the way for Houston to take over as the state’s premier centre of wealth.
It’s well known that the Titanic sank after it struck an iceberg on 14 April 1912 – but what caused that iceberg to be floating so far south in spring? In the early 20th century, only a few hundred icebergs would drift below the 48th parallel each year, but, in 1912, some 1,038 hunks of ice crossed this line. Almost 400 of these were in April – including one that hit the Titanic as it crossed the Atlantic. Some experts have suggested high spring tides, low sunspot activity and glacial melt in Greenland as contributing factors, along with a freezing, moonless night that reduced visibility.
American farmers keen to plant the most profitable crops settled homesteads across the Great Plains, pulling up native prairie grasses in favour of wheat, corn and other crops. But when drought hit in 1931, it eroded the topsoil which began to blow away in massive dust storms. Huge ‘black blizzards’ (pictured) billowed across the plains – some even reaching as far as New York or Washington DC – and prompted mass migration from Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kansas and Colorado, changing American culture forever.
German airship the Hindenburg heralded a bright future for air travel until a deadly disaster spelled the end for the new technology. The vessel was en route to New Jersey on 6 May 1937 when poor weather prompted a detour over New York. As the airship came in to land, it passed through storm clouds causing an electrical charge to build, so when the ropes were dropped they grounded the frame and caused a spark. This ignited the hydrogen, resulting in a deadly and extremely high-profile air accident that killed 35 on board and one person on the ground. If it weren’t for one storm, air travel might look very different today.
As Nazi forces swept across Europe, Allied soldiers were forced to retreat to the northern French port of Dunkirk in May 1940, awaiting evacuation across the English Channel – and hoping the Luftwaffe German Air Force wouldn’t find them first. The British Navy and 850 privately owned ‘little ships’ set forth to ferry the troops to safety – but what really helped was the weather. The normally choppy Channel was unusually calm, while a dense mist at Dunkirk combined with heavy clouds over Germany hindered the Luftwaffe – meaning more than 338,000 troops were able to escape.
Those who don’t learn lessons from history are doomed to repeat it – yet 1941 saw another European despot try to take on the might of Russia, and fail miserably once winter struck. During the Second World War, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union intent on capturing Moscow. Initially they advanced rapidly, but by late autumn the weather turned against them. Heavy rains turned roads into mud, stalling vehicles and supply lines. When winter arrived temperatures plummeted, and the Nazis' reliance on vehicles whose fuel and lubricants froze in the Arctic weather, plus their lack of winter clothing, created a dire situation for the German army. Over 100,000 frostbite cases were reported.
The D-Day Landings were the most pivotal moment in the Allied fight against Nazi Germany – but the whole operation hinged on a weather forecast. In order to sneak across the English Channel to the beaches of Normandy, troops needed calm weather and a low tide. The invasion was initially planned for 5 June 1944 – but meteorologist Group Captain James Stagg and his team predicted poor weather and called for a delay. Operation Overlord went ahead the next day, with cloud cover working in the Allies’ favour.
Dropping the atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the Second World War to a devastating close – but did you know that where they fell depended partly on the weather? The first raid went ahead on 6 August 1945, leaving Hiroshima in ruins. But when the second was moved up to 9 August, it was Kokura (now called Kitakyushu) and its ancient castles that were in the crosshairs. However cloud cover and drifting smoke meant visibility was low – and so the secondary target of Nagasaki was chosen instead.
Weather events aren’t just about storms and showers. On 22 November 1963, it was an unexpectedly sunny afternoon in Dallas that helped etch this date forever into history. The morning started out damp and overcast but the rain that had been forecast never materialised, turning instead into sunny skies. So pleasant, in fact, that when President John F Kennedy’s motorcade set off across the city, he opted to lower the plexiglass bubble on his Lincoln convertible – thus leaving him with no protection when he was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
The Iran hostage crisis gripped the world from the moment Iranian students seized the US embassy in Tehran on 4 November 1979, keeping 52 Americans captive. In April 1980, US president Jimmy Carter authorised a helicopter rescue, but the aircraft was caught up in a sandstorm known as a haboob, failing to bring back the hostages and killing eight servicemen on board. Carter was campaigning for re-election at the time and the fiasco is widely thought to have contributed to his defeat to Ronald Reagan. Just minutes after Reagan's inauguration in January 1981, the hostages were freed (pictured) following 444 days in captivity.
The launch of the Challenger space shuttle was supposed to inspire future astronauts, with teacher Christa McAuliffe on board alongside the NASA crew. But technical and weather hitches delayed it to 28 January 1986, only for an unseasonal freeze to hit the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral. The mix of wet weather and sub-zero temperatures caused rubber O-ring seals to fail, and the shuttle broke up 73 seconds after lift-off, killing those on board and delaying the US space programme for years.
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