High-resolution analyses of ice cores from Antarctica and Greenland reveal an explosive volcanic eruption in the tropics in A.D. 1809 which is not reflected in the historical record. A comparison in the same ice cores of the sulfate flux from the A.D. 1809 eruption to that from the Tambora eruption (A.D. 1815) indicates a near-equatorial location and a magnitude roughly half that of Tambora. Th...