1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in the context of "Dutch East Indies"

The Minoan eruption was a catastrophic volcanic eruption that devastated the Aegean island of Thera (also called Santorini) circa 1600 BC. It destroyed the Minoan settlement at Akrotiri, as well as communities and agricultural areas on nearby islands and the coast of Crete with subsequent earthquakes and tsunamis. With a Volcanic Explosivity Index (VEI) of 7, it resulted in the ejection of approximately 28–41 km (6.7–9.8 cu mi) of dense-rock equivalent (DRE), the eruption was one of the largest volcanic events in human history. Because tephra from the Minoan eruption serves as a marker horizon in nearly all archaeological sites in the Eastern Mediterranean, its precise date is of high importance and has been fiercely debated among archaeologists and volcanologists for decades, without coming to a definite conclusion.

Although there are no clear ancient records of the eruption, its plume and volcanic lightning may have been described in the Egyptian Tempest Stele. The Chinese Bamboo Annals reported unusual yellow skies and summer frost at the beginning of the Shang dynasty, which may have been a consequence of volcanic winter (similar to 1816, the Year Without a Summer, after the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora).

This is a list of volcanoes that have had large explosive eruptions during the Holocene (since about 11,650 years Before Present), with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 5 or higher, or a plume height of at least 30 km. To date, there have been no eruptions with a confirmed VEI of 8 in the Holocene; and only a few VEI-7 eruptions are thought to have occurred during this time: the most recent was the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora.

The year 1816 is known as the Year Without a Summer because of severe climate abnormalities that caused average global temperatures to decrease by 0.4–0.7 °C (0.7–1 °F). Summer temperatures in Europe that year were the coldest of any on record between 1766 and 2000, resulting in crop failures and major food shortages across the Northern Hemisphere.

Evidence suggests that the anomaly was predominantly a volcanic winter event caused by the massive 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in April in modern-day Indonesia (commonly referred to as the Dutch East Indies at the time). This eruption was the largest in at least 1,300 years (after the hypothesized eruption causing the volcanic winter of 536); its effect on the climate may have been exacerbated by the 1814 eruption of Mayon in the Philippines. The significant amount of volcanic ash and gases released into the atmosphere blocked sunlight, leading to global cooling.

1816 (MDCCCXVI) was a leap year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and a leap year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar, the 1816th year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 816th year of the 2nd millennium, the 16th year of the 19th century, and the 7th year of the 1810s decade. As of the start of 1816, the Gregorian calendar was 12 days ahead of the Julian calendar, which remained in localized use until 1923.

This year was known as the Year Without a Summer, because of low temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere, possibly the result of the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, causing severe global cooling, catastrophic in some locations.

The 1810s (pronounced "eighteen-tens") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1810, and ended on December 31, 1819.

The decade was opened with a very hostile political climate around the world. Napoleon was invading France's neighbours in efforts to build a French Empire, causing a chain of global-scaled conflicts known as the Napoleonic Wars. Here, France's Napoleonic empire saw its rise and fall through events such as Napoleon's attempts to conquer Russia, the War of 1812 (spillover to America), and the Battle of Waterloo (Napoleon's ultimate defeat). Imperialism began to encroach towards African and Asian territories through trade, as the United States saw mass-scaled migration that headed westward towards the American frontier (mostly through the opening of the Oregon Trail.)

Tambora is the poorly attested non-Austronesian (Papuan) language of the Tambora culture of central Sumbawa, in what is now Indonesia, that was made extinct by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora. It was the westernmost known Papuan language and was relatively unusual among such languages in being the language of a maritime trading state, though contemporary Papuan trading states were also found off Halmahera in Ternate and Tidore.