Right, so what you'll quickly find is that your worst year was someone else's best year. So too with history. The period between 600 and 1450 CE is often called the Middle Ages in Europe because it came between the Roman Empire, assuming you forget about the Byzantines, and the beginning of the modern age. And it's sometimes called the Dark Ages because it was so purportedly unenlightened. But was the age really so dark? It depends on what you find depressing. If you like cities and great poetry, then the Dark Ages were indeed pretty dark in Europe.