[blam]

"I don't mean to ask a stoopid question, but aren't Americans from the same Europeans who survived the dark ages? "

Yes.

The Dark Ages began around 540AD and was likely caused by an impacting fragment from a comet.

[SedVictaCatoni]

Well, insofar as it's meaningful to argue about a historical term... Historians generally consider the Dark Ages to have begun in the fifth century, when a series of barbarian peoples invaded the Mediterranean world and destroyed urban civilization.

[datura]

Come on, blam, you of all people know that a comet is merely a snowball and would not survive through our atmosphere.

I think the term would be "asteroid" rather than "comet".

Hudson Bay maybe?