Illustrated London News Ltd/Mary Evans
It’s not easy to forget the deaths of 50 million people, but we have managed it. A global drought in the 1870s caused mass starvation in South America, Africa and Asia, but the event doesn’t even have a Wikipedia page. Now it seems the drought was triggered by a never-before-seen combination of climate events. While rare, the drought was entirely natural so it could easily happen again.
Between 1875 and 1878, severe droughts ravaged India, China and parts of …