Weather That Changed History

Weather That Changed History: From storms that scattered invasion fleets to droughts that toppled civilizations, weather has repeatedly decided outcomes that generals, kings and planners could not control.

Kamikaze: Typhoons in 1274 and 1281 wrecked the Mongol fleets sent by Kublai Khan to invade Japan; the Japanese called them 'divine winds,' the word later reused for suicide pilots.

Spanish Armada: More Spanish ships were lost to storms off Scotland and Ireland in 1588 than to English guns, and Elizabeth I's commemorative medal credited God with blowing them away.

Glorious Revolution: In 1688 a so-called 'Protestant Wind' carried William of Orange's fleet down the English Channel while pinning King James II's navy in port, clearing the way for a nearly bloodless takeover.

Battle of Long Island: In August 1776 a thick fog helped hide George Washington's overnight evacuation of about 9,000 troops across the East River, saving the Continental Army from destruction.

Battle of Trenton: Washington crossed the icy Delaware in a nor'easter of sleet and snow on Christmas night 1776, and the terrible weather helped him surprise the Hessian garrison.

Battle of Agincourt: Heavy rain turned a freshly plowed field into deep mud in 1415, trapping heavily armored French knights and letting English longbowmen win against far larger numbers.

French Invasion of Russia: Napoleon's 1812 army is famous for freezing, but huge numbers were already lost to summer heat, dysentery and typhus before winter even arrived; only a small fraction ever made it home.

Rasputitsa: The Russian 'season of bad roads,' when rain and thaw turn the ground to mud, stalled the German advance on Moscow in autumn 1941 before a brutal early freeze finished the job.

James Stagg: The chief meteorologist for D-Day persuaded Eisenhower to delay the invasion by one day and then spotted a brief lull for June 6, 1944; German forecasters missed it, and Rommel was home for his wife's birthday.

Battle of the Bulge: Germany launched its December 1944 offensive under thick fog and low clouds that grounded Allied aircraft; when skies cleared around December 23, Allied air power helped turn the battle.

Battle of Suomussalmi: In the Winter War, Finnish ski troops used temperatures of around minus 40 to cut Soviet columns into isolated pockets, destroying a much larger force.

Kokura: This Japanese city was the primary target for the second atomic bomb on August 9, 1945, but clouds and smoke hid it from the bomber crew, who diverted to Nagasaki instead.

Operation Eagle Claw: The 1980 attempt to rescue US hostages in Iran was crippled partly by huge desert dust clouds called haboobs; its failure became a major blow to Jimmy Carter's presidency.

Great Storm of 1703: The worst storm recorded in British history wrecked much of the Royal Navy's fleet, drowning well over a thousand sailors on the Goodwin Sands, and inspired Daniel Defoe's 'The Storm,' often called one of the first works of modern journalism.

Great Hurricane of 1780: The deadliest Atlantic hurricane on record killed around 22,000 people in the Caribbean and damaged British and French warships in the middle of the American Revolutionary War.

Galveston Hurricane: The 1900 storm killed somewhere between 6,000 and 12,000 people, still the deadliest disaster in US history, and pushed business to nearby Houston, which grew into the region's giant.

Bhola Cyclone: The 1970 storm killed hundreds of thousands in East Pakistan, and anger over the government's slow response helped fuel the independence war that created Bangladesh a year later.

Black Sunday: On April 14, 1935, a massive dust storm swept across the Great Plains and turned day into night, and it helped push Congress to create the Soil Conservation Service.

Year Without a Summer: After Mount Tambora erupted, 1816 brought snow in June and crop failures across the Northern Hemisphere; stuck indoors by the gloom, Mary Shelley began writing Frankenstein.

Laki: The 1783 Icelandic eruption spread a toxic haze over Europe, killed a large part of Iceland's livestock and caused a severe famine there, and some historians link its crop failures to the unrest that led to the French Revolution.

Great Famine of 1315: Years of relentless rain rotted crops across northern Europe, killing millions and weakening the population decades before the Black Death arrived.

River Thames Frost Fair: During the Little Ice Age, London's river froze so solid that Londoners held fairs on it with printing presses, games and even an elephant led across the ice in 1814.

4.2-Kiloyear Event: A severe drought around 2200 BC is linked to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire, often called the world's first empire, and to upheaval in Egypt's Old Kingdom.

Classic Maya Collapse: Cave formations and lake sediments reveal a series of severe droughts between the 8th and 10th centuries that coincided with the abandonment of great Maya cities.