Famine Devastates Finland and the Baltics
1696
A succession of crop failures brought on by volcanic cooling and brutal winters killed roughly a third of Finland's population and devastated the Baltic provinces of Sweden. Entire parishes vanished. The Great Famine of 1695-1697, proportionally one of the worst in European history, exposed the fragility of northern agriculture and weakened Swedish power on the eve of the Great Northern War.
In context
Also in 1696 (3 other events on record)
- Peter the Great Captures Azov · Europe · War
- Calculus War Erupts Between Newton and Leibniz · Europe · Science
- Window Tax Introduced in England · Europe · Politics
Before and after in Europe
Before and after in Disaster
Era
Enlightenment (1651–1800), one of 696 events from that era on Saeculum.