so throughout history there have been more than a few occasions where humanity
nearly met its demise take the creation of the nuclear bomb as an example many people involved
in its creation would often joke about the possibility of the blast creating a thermonuclear
transformation of the atmosphere of course these were only jokes but the truth of the matter is
that nobody knew just how powerful it would be and in some instances if it would even work on
the day of the first nuclear test harvard professor james conant was so surprised by
the scale and power of the blast that he actually thought something had gone horribly wrong and that
he was witnessing the end of the world as history has proven that test did not mark the end of the
world it did however lead to a nuclear arms race that struck fear in families all over the planet
thanks to this invention only a select few countries had the power to truly
end humanity and as you're about to learn that moment nearly came to fruition in 1995
and very few people ever heard the story here are five times that humanity nearly went
extinct before we get started make sure to subscribe if you haven't already to never
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so the destructive power of nuclear weapons is well known by now
after world war ii scientists concluded that it would take somewhere between 10 and 100 nuclear
warheads to put the entire human race to an end this of course varies greatly depending
on the size of the nuke and whether or not it was detonated atmospherically the radiation caused by
the nuclear explosion would make the air toxic and poisonous knock out electronics and possibly even
put humanity into some sort of nuclear winter it wouldn't be a pretty sight and believe it or not
this is what nearly happened less than 30 years ago back in january of 1995 a team of american and
norwegian scientists launched a four-stage rocket which was carrying scientific equipment
it was a harmless launch that was no doubt going to do a lot of good for the scientific community
during its flight russian military officials spotted the rocket on their radar and feared
that it was a nuclear warhead headed straight for the capital within minutes the signal made its
way up the chain of commands to russian president boris yeltsin who even went as far as to activate
the nuclear keys orders were given to prepare for war against the united states of america
russian submarine commanders were told to ready up for possible nuclear retaliation
soon after military officials determined that the rocket was not heading towards russia's
mainland and they did not retaliate avoiding an all-out nuclear war by just a few minutes
around 70 000 to 75 000 years ago there was a volcanic eruption so powerful
it very well may have changed the course of humanity the toba catastrophe theory states
that modern human evolution was affected by a large recent volcanic event you see
within the last three to five million years after humans and other ape lineages diverged the human
lineage produced a variety of human species now according to the theory a massive mega colossal
volcanic eruption occurred at the toba caldera in indonesia this eruption likely reduced the global
temperature by three to three and a half degrees celsius possibly triggering an ice age this
enormous environmental change is believed by some to have created population bottlenecks
within species which accelerated differentiation of the isolated human populations basically wiping
out all other variations of humans except for the branch that became modern humans this is truly a
remarkable event and one that very well could have completely wiped the human species off the planet
back in the 1300s the world faced a threat unlike anything it had seen before it all
started in october of 1347 when 12 ships from the black sea docked at the sicilian port of messina
when locals who were gathered on the docks boarded the ships they were met with a terrifying surprise
most of the people on board the ship were dead and the few who were still alive were extremely
ill and covered in black boils that oozed blood and pus upon discovering this sicilian
officials immediately ordered the ships out of the harbor but it was too late at this point
over the course of the next five years what became known as the black death would go on to kill
millions of people in europe alone which was almost one-third of the continent's population but
europe was definitely not the only continent affected by the black plague not long after
impacting messina the disease spread to france and north africa from here it also
reached rome and florence which at the time were two cities at the center of global trade routes
by 1348 the black death had infected bordeaux lyon paris and london back in those times
nobody knew how the disease was transmitted and even worse nobody knew how to treat or
prevent it doctors would rely on dangerous and unsophisticated techniques such as bloodletting
and boil lancing and superstitious practices like burning certain herbs and bathing in rose
water or vinegar to treat their patients all of this uncertainty and misunderstanding led
people to believe the black death was a kind of punishment from god and by this logic the
only way to overcome the disease was to get his forgiveness some people believed that
the only way to go about this was to purge their communities so for example between 1348 and 1349
thousands of jews were massacred by the early 1350s the black death had mostly run its course
the plague would reappear every few generations for centuries but never to the same extent
in the end it is estimated that as much as 60 of europe's population died from the plague
somewhere around 195 000 years ago the world went through what is known as the big
chill temperatures around the globe dropped in the winter and then also dropped in the summer
glaciers grew in size and entire habitats were destroyed
this era is officially called marine isotope stage 6 and unofficially called a glacial stage
some believe that the human breeding population shrank down to only
600 people and some of those pockets didn't even survive in africa humans split up this
possibly happened intentionally as groups had to leave shrinking habitable areas the groups
of humans that did survive were both lucky and smart many of the survivors happened to settle
beside the sea in what's now south africa this particular spot happened to be rich in plants
that stored their energy in starchy tubers below the surface the water in the area was
somewhat warm as well and was enough to nourish shellfish which people could eat to survive
the period of time was harsh and vast majorities of the human population died it took many years
for the population to grow back in size after nearly being wiped off the face of the planet
now we put this last one on the list because it's not a time where millions of people lost
their life rather it's a time when many believed the outcome of this one science experiment could
very well be the end of the world if you don't understand what i mean allow me to explain the
atom collider is the world's largest and most expensive scientific experiment ever conducted
it is a 17 mile long underground tube which smashes atomic particles at a very high speed
the purpose is to solve the mysteries of the universe
at its launch it was feared that this experiment would cause the end of the world the thought by
some scientists was that the experiment could create a black hole right here on earth a legal
bid was even filed to stop the experiment as the potential outcome was still unknown
according to reports by some miniature black holes could be created during the collision which could
have the potential to dissolve the planet finally after lots of scrutiny stephen hawking intervened
and deemed the experiment safe here's a brief look inside one of these large hadron colliders
the world as we know it is full of dangerous things but most do not threaten humanity as we
know it we as a species have survived some truly unthinkable disasters and hopefully
we don't have to survive any new disasters anytime soon if you enjoyed this video and
want to see more like it then make sure to leave some future video suggestions
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with that said thanks for watching and we will catch you all in the next one