Most have heard of the Battle of Waterloo, but who has heard of the volcano called Tambora? No school textbook I've seen mentions that only two months before Napoleon's final defeat in Belgium on June 18, 1815, the faraway Indonesian island of Sumbawa was the site of the most devastating volcanic eruption on Earth in thousands of years.
The death toll claimed around 100,000 people, from the thick pyroclastic flows of lava, from the tsunami that struck nearby coasts, and from the thick ash that blanketed South-East Asia's farmlands, destroyed crops and plunged it into darkness for a week. Both events – Napoleon's defeat and the eruption – had monumental impacts on human history. But while a library of scholarship has been devoted to Napoleon's undoing at Waterloo, the scattered writings on Tambora would scarcely fill your in-tray.
