The ‘little ice age’ of the 14th to the 19th centuries brought cold winters to Europe and unusual weather globally. Studying how humans adapted could be valuable

Michael MarshallMon 9 May 2022 11.00 EDT

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In early February 1814, an elephant walked across the surface of the Thames near Blackfriars Bridge in London.The stuntwas performed during thefrost fair, when temperatures were so cold that for four days the top layers of the river froze solid. Londoners promptly held a festival, complete with what we might now call pop-up shops and a lot of unlicensed alcohol.

Nobody could have known it at the time, but this was the last of the Thames frost fairs. They had taken place every few decades, at wildly irregular intervals, for several centuries…