and i just discovered that the same event that caused the mormons to move to utah, also spawned the invention of the bicycle!

ths subject in dispute the "Year Without a Summer." apparently in april 1815 Mt. Tambora, on Sombawa, erupted for 10 days, spewing literally tons of ash and debris into the air (and killing 80,000 locals within days). that winter, most of europe was blanketed in dirty snow, while causing food outages all over the continent. by the next year the exessively darkened skies caused sommer to pass much like winter, killing crops around the globe. hit hard by the lack of food, the north eastern us folk decided to move west (the mormoms)- the photo above is of boston, mid july- if any one knows what the east coast is like during summer, thats a scary photo. in europe, engineer types - who had time and food- worked on 'horseless' methods of conveyance (the precursor to the bicycle).

read more here.