536 (thing)

"During this year a most dread portent took place. For the sun gave forth its light without brightness...and it seemed exceedingly like the sun in eclipse, for the beams it shed were not clear."

- Byzantine historian Procopius, report on the war with the Vandals, AD 536

"There was a sign from the sun the like of which had never been seen or reported before. The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for eighteen months. Each day it shone for about four hours and still, this light was but a feeble shadow. Everyone declared that the sun would never recover its full light again."

- Syrian bishop John of Ephesus, Ecclesiastical History, entry for AD 536.

In the year AD 536...

• Three volcanic eruptions in different parts of the world set off a volcanic winter that lasts for approximately a decade, leading to devastating crop failures and famines worldwide and inaugurating the so-called Late Antique Little Ice Age.
• Byzantine general Belisarius continues his wars with the Vandals and Ostrogoths. First, he sails to Carthage and puts down a revolt by the Vandals at the Battle of the Bagradas River. Then he invades Ostrogoth-held Italy via Sicily, conquering the cities of Rhegium and Naples. He then occupies Rome and digs in against an Ostrogoth counter-attack.
• Ostrogothic noble Vitiges has King Theodahad murdered and marries Matasuntha, the daughter of former Ostrogoth queen Amalasuntha. He then has himself elected king of the Ostrogoths and prepares to attack Belisarius in Rome.
• The Council of Constantinople condemns Patriarch Anthimus I of Constantinople, Patriarch Severus of Antioch, Bishop Peter of Apamea, and the monk Zoora as heretics for refusing to accept the theological resolutions of the Council of Chalcedon held in 451.
• Construction is completed in Byzantium on the Greek Orthodox church now known as the Little Hagia Sophia.

These people were born in 536:

• Byzantine ecclesiastical historian Evagrius Scholasticus.

These people died in 536:

• Legendary 27th emperor of Japan Ankan, succeeded by his brother Senka.
• Pope Agapetus I, after a reign of just 10 months.
• King of the Ostrogoths Theodahad, murdered on the orders of a rival warlord,
• Chinese alchemist, astronomer, calligrapher, military general, musician, physician, and pharmacologist Tao Hongjing.
• Japanese statesman and general Mononobe no Arakabi.

535 - 536 - 537

6th century

How they were made