In 1817, a disastrous harvest caused a shortage of grain and consequently a
huge price increase: corn prices quadrupled. The majority of the population
was poor and suffered from hunger. The reason for the European-wide crop
failure was the tremendous eruption of the Tambora volcano in today’s
Indonesia. Vast amounts of its ash clouded the atmosphere, resulting in a
cooling of the global climate. In this ‘year without a summer’, it snowed in
Europe every month, even at low altitudes. The ‘two-penny bread roll’ in
Basel recalls this bad year.