OTOH, according to ice core records and dendochronology, there were periods (not on record, since thermometers hadn't been invented) when mean temperatures at all the places where these temperature proxies are sampled from were a fair bit hotter than the last decade (or half decade), periods that used to be called "the Medieval Climate Optimum", "the Roman Climate Optimum" and "the Holocene Climate Optimum" when people remembered that humanity tends to do better in warm climates, while cold climates, e.g. "the Little Ice Age" or full on Ice Ages, go with famine and disease.