- Sometimes us humans don't quite realize
just how fragile our lives are.
In fact, it's quite shocking how often
we come close to wiping ourselves out.
Even today we struggle to deal with
potentially catastrophic situations
such as the rapidly warming global temperatures
caused by climate change,
or the possibility of a second Cold War
between the U.S. and North Korea.
Despite this, humanity has prevailed time and time again,
despite many setbacks.
So, so far we've been pretty lucky.
However, I'm Mike at List 25,
and here are 19 times the world almost ended
and probably would have if the situations
were slightly different.
(upbeat music)
19.
NORAD computer chip malfunction.
The Cold War lasted from 1945 to 1990
and was a period of time during which
it seemed the whole world was on a hair trigger.
Of course, nothing exemplifies this
more than the numerous nuclear scares
that took place when tensions reached its peak.
One of these such nuclear scares took place
on June 3rd, 1980.
At 3:00 a.m., the president's national security advisor,
Zbigniew Brzezinski, received an emergency phone call
warning him that a large
U.S.-bound nuclear strike was imminent.
The entire country's defenses were on red alert.
In minutes, Air Force bombers were prepared for taking off
and nuclear missiles were primed for launch.
Luckily, the attack was quickly discovered
to be a false alarm, and the counterattack was called off
before any serious damage was done.
It was only a short while later
that a culprit was discovered, a single malfunctioning,
46-cent computer chip at the Pentagon.
18, the eruption of Thera.
One of the largest volcanic events on earth
in recorded history was the Minoan eruption.
It took place near the Aegean island of Thera
during the mid second millennium BCE.
The eruption was estimated to have had
the destructive force of 40 atomic bombs
exploding in unison.
Interestingly, the eruption was a hundred times
more powerful than the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius
that devastated Pompeii in 79 CE.
Needless to say, it became one of the defining catalysts
in the demise of the early Bronze Age
civilization of the Minoans.
The eruption of Thera obliterated the city of Akrotiri,
present-day Santorini,
and caused earthquakes and tsunamis
that nearly destroyed the surrounding islands,
including the wildly populated city of Crete.
It also created a massive cloud of volcanic ash
that settled across Europe and altered
global weather patterns in the years that followed.
17, the rise of CFCs.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s,
advancements of technology were outpacing
the understanding of its impact on the earth.
Cities were suffocating from smog.
Rivers caught fire from pollution,
and the rising of global temperatures
could no longer be ignored.
One of the environmental alarms that went off
came in 1985 when scientists confirmed their fears
that a certain type of chemical widely used
in many modern products was ripping a hole
in the atmospheric ozone layer.
Of course, the ozone layer is responsible
for shielding Earth's surface
from the most harmful of the sun's rays.
These horrifying chemicals were none other than
chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs, which were found in everything
from aerosols to air conditioners.
Luckily, the scientists and governments of the world
acted fast, and new regulations were put into place
that limited or banned the use of CFCs.
If left unchecked for even a couple more years,
it could have permanently altered
life on earth for the worse.
16, Asteroid 2018 GE3.
The thought of a giant asteroid
crashing into our little planet
and sending us the way of the dinosaurs is terrifying.
What's even more terrifying is that
it nearly became a reality on April 14th, 2018.
First noticed by the Catalina Sky Survey,
Asteroid 2018 GE3 shot past Earth
only a few hours after its detection.
At its closest point, the asteroid was only
192,317 kilometers from Earth,
less than half the distance between the Earth and the moon.
With an estimated distance of 48 to 110 meters,
this asteroid is currently believed to be
the largest known object to have passed so close to us.
There's no doubt that, had it made contact with the Earth,
the devastation would have been astronomical.
15, the Carrington Event.
In the 1800s, many telegraph operators
were familiar with telegraph lines going down
due to thunderstorms and other electromagnetic disturbances.
However, one killer storm took them completely by surprise.
Between August 28th and September 2nd,
the Earth experienced its wildest geomagnetic storms
in recorded history.
Communication around the world was wiped out,
causing numerous electrical failures and accidents.
These storms were discovered to be the cause
of a huge solar flare known as
a coronal mass ejection, or CME.
Fortunately, the world bounced back
after a couple of days without telegraphs
and some weird weather.
Interestingly, if the same geomagnetic storm took place now,
our electrically dependent and interconnected society
would suffer severe and possibly apocalyptic repercussions.
14, Reston, Virginia Ebola crisis.
The Ebola virus continues to strike fear
into all who hear about it, and with good reason.
This highly contagious disease
is nearly impossible to contain,
and vaccines have been found to have
varying levels of success.
Unfortunately, those left untreated often wind up dead
less than two weeks following the first symptoms.
So far the worst outbreaks have yet to reach
any major population centers.
However, that nearly changed in 1989
when a number of Macaque monkeys
imported from the Philippines to the U.S.
were found to have the virus.
The monkeys were sent to Reston, Virginia for lab testing,
and all of them died suddenly
from a suspiciously Ebola-like virus.
To make matters worse, blood samples from
a number of researchers who had
come in contact with the monkeys
also tested positive for the virus.
Luckily, after days of panic, it was concluded
that this particular strain of Ebola that killed the monkeys
didn't pose any harm to humans.
However, the event did illustrate just how easily
wide-scale outbreaks could happen,
as well as demonstrate just how unprepared we were
at the time to deal with such a pandemic.
13, SAC-NORAD communications error.
If you were planning a nuclear attack on the U.S.,
the first place you'd probably want to hit
would be the agency in charge of overseeing
the country's defense against said attack,
as well as responsible for carrying out
nuclear counterattacks.
This is what the U.S. Strategic Air Command thought as well
when, on the 24th of November, 1961,
they found that all communication with NORAD had gone dead.
This meant there was no way for them to
know ahead of time if a nuclear attack was on its way.
The SAC, fearful that missiles were coming toward the U.S.,
immediately sounded the alarms
and prepared to launch a full-scale nuclear counterattack
on the USSR.
Luckily, the final orders were never given
and it was quickly discovered that
the communications were down due to a malfunction
at a single relay station in Colorado.
12, the unstoppable super flu.
As Jeff Goldblum once said,
"Your scientists were so preoccupied
"with whether or not they could,
"they didn't stop to think if they should."
While Dr. Yoshihiro Kawaoka wasn't trying to bring back
long extinct reptiles,
his studies of the H5N1 bird flu in 2011
certainly raised some serious questions
about how far some people are willing to go
in the name of science.
By modifying strains of the avian influenza virus,
Kawaoka attempted to create a new hybrid strain of the virus
that could bypass the human immune system.
The scariest part was just how close he had gotten
before the study was shut down
due to it being a threat to the health
of the entire human race.
Kawaoka had managed to create a virus
that could be transmitted via the air
between test animals held in separate cages,
and was believed to be only a single mutation away
from being so deadly to humans
that the body literally had no way to combat it.
11, the Bonilla Comet.
When Mexican astronomer Jose Bonilla claimed
to have observed over 400 dark unidentified flying objects
cross in front of the sun while observing sunspots
on August 12th, 1883, most of the scientific community
wrote it off as a hoax or a high-flying flock of geese.
At the time, that seemed to be the end of the story.
Then, in 2011, a new study into Bonilla's observations
and the pictures he had taken revealed something terrifying.
The dark unidentified objects were not, in fact,
a bunch of flying birds at all.
As it turns out, they were most likely fragments
of a billion-ton comet that passed within
8,000 kilometers of Earth.
That's less than the width of Russia.
10, genetically altered bacteria.
The mid-1990s was a time of many scientific advancements
around the world.
That being said, for every new computer
or more eco-friendly car, there was a failure.
One such failure could have had
astronomical effects on the world,
and it came in one of the smallest packages imaginable.
Bacteria.
Genetically modified bacteria, to be precise.
Created by a German biotech company,
Klebsiella Planticola was a supposedly helpful microbe
that would convert dead plant matter into ethanol,
which could then be used in everything
from powering our cars to creating drinkable alcohol.
The scientists were quite pleased
with the success of their project,
and by 1994, they had a working strain of the bacteria
that was ready for field testing.
Fortunately, independent testing at Oregon State University
found something that the company producing it
had somehow missed.
They discovered that K. Planticola
didn't wait until plants had died
to begin fermenting them, and every plant it was tested on
died soon after.
To make things worse, K. Planticola
was based on a bacteria present
in the decomposition of every type of
terrestrial plant on Earth,
meaning that it could potentially cause
a mass plant extinction
that could devastate farms and forests all over the world.
Needless to say, the field tests were called off,
and all plans to unintentionally
create a global plant super plague
were put on hold indefinitely.
Nine, the Black Death.
One of the most devastating global epidemics in history
was The Black Death.
It was the name given to a massive outbreak
of the Bubonic Plague that struck in Europe and Asia
in the mid-14th century.
The outbreak was believed to have started in China
before slowly making its way west
via fleas and diseased rats,
leaving death and suffering in its way.
Europe had heard of the so-called Great Pestilence
in years leading up to its introduction
to the western world.
However, it didn't prepare them for what was to come.
In 1347, a number of ships from the Black Sea
arrived in the Sicilian port of Messina
with most of the sailors on board dead.
Those that survived were gravely ill
and covered in oozing boils.
The ships were quickly set out of the harbor,
but the damage had already been done.
The Plague quickly washed over the rest of Europe,
wiping out close to a third of its population
by the year 1351.
By the time the Black Death finally subsided,
it was believed to have caused the deaths of
as many as 75 to 200 million people
in Eurasia and the rest of the world.
Eight, Soviet nuclear false alarm.
It's not often that the fate of the world
rests entirely in the hands of a single person.
But that's exactly the situation that Soviet officer
Stanislav Petrov found himself in
just after midnight on September 26th, 1983.
Petrov was left in charge of a command center near Moscow
when one of his computers began sending him warnings
that five American intercontinental ballistic missiles
were incoming, and fast.
Petrov's responsibility was to inform his higher-ups
at the first likelihood of an incoming attack,
an action that would almost certainly result
in the mutually ensured destruction
of both the United States and the USSR.
Despite his very clear instructions,
as well as the lives of hundreds of millions of people,
including his own, resting on his judgment,
Petrov decided not to call in the warning.
As it turns out, we can all probably thank
Stanislav Petrov that we're still all alive today.
The warning, as it turned out,
had actually just been a system malfunction
caused by a rare solar alignment
messing with the Soviet radar satellite
that had transmitted the false alarm.
Thank you, Petrov.
Seven, 2012 coronal mass ejection.
Remember how I said that the Carrington event
would have been catastrophic in
today's technology-dependent world?
Well, because that's almost exactly what happened in 2012.
On July 23rd, a huge coronal mass ejection
easily as powerful as the 1859 solar super storm
came speeding in Earth's direction.
Luckily for us, it missed, but only barely.
The ejection passed Earth by less than a week,
and many scientists and economists estimate
that the cost of the damages, had it hit Earth,
could have exceeded two trillion dollars
and taken decades of recovery time.
Six, Cuban Missile Crisis.
Often cited as the single most intense
13 days of the Cold War, the 1962 Cuban missile crisis
was a nearly two week long period of time
during which a single misstep could have set
the entire world into nuclear war.
Following the failed Bay of Pigs invasion,
the missile crisis began when U.S. surveillance discovered
Soviet-sanctioned missiles in Cuba,
only 90 miles from Florida.
This action violated a previous agreement
between the two nuclear superpowers,
and over the next couple of days,
the situation ramped up exponentially.
The United States debated whether to
send in an air raid, or perhaps invasion of Cuba
to destroy the missiles.
Of course, the latter action would certainly spark a war.
After days of tense negotiation
and a number of dangerously close calls to all-out war,
the lengthy stalemate was brought to an end.
President John F. Kennedy and the Soviet leader,
Nikita Khrushchev, were able to strike a last-second deal.
It stated that the Soviet Union
would remove their WMDs from Cuba
in return for the United States' word
that they would not invade the island.
Five, the training tape accident.
On November 9th, 1979, operators at
the U.S. missile warning command center
were shocked when they found themselves
face down with the warning that a full-scale nuclear attack
was inbound from the USSR.
Immediately the country went into high alert.
Every organization, from NORAD to the
Strategic Air Command Center received the warning
and began preparations to stop the incoming missiles.
Within minutes, nuclear bomb crews
were sent to their places,
at least 10 fighter interceptor planes were launched,
and even the President's own air command took to the sky.
Interestingly, in the panic, the plane took off
without President Carter.
He was still on the ground.
Luckily it was quickly discovered
that the alert had actually been caused
by a training tape that was mistakenly inserted
into the NORAD mainframe,
which broadcasted to every missile command center
in North America.
Oops.
Four, the Spanish flu.
The Spanish flu is widely considered
to be one of, if not the worst global epidemics
to strike the human race.
Starting around January 1918,
the disease quickly swept across the world,
infecting over a third of the world's population
in just over a year.
In a matter of months, the virus had caused
the average life expectancy of Americans
to drop by 12 years.
Aided by the first world war,
the flu spread quickly across Europe.
Fueled by close contact and unsanitary conditions,
entire troops were taken down by it.
The flu was not limited to Europe,
and spread with vicious intent.
When the pandemic had subsided,
cases of the Spanish flu had even been found
on isolated islands in the Arctic and South Pacific.
By the end of the pandemic,
an estimated 500 million individuals
had been infected, and more than 50 million killed.
Roughly 3-5% of the world's population perished.
Three, Mt. Tambora eruption.
The volcanic mountain Tambora
on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia,
has had a number of volcanic episodes.
However, one of the most powerful and devastating
was the eruption on April 5th, 1815.
Blasting 36 cubic miles of gasses,
dust, and rock into the atmosphere,
the eruption itself launched a tsunami
that resulted in the deaths of more than 10,000 people.
The sediment released in the atmosphere by the volcano
clouded most of the Earth,
causing months of cold temperatures
from North America to Europe.
The ensuing famine caused over 80,000 people to die,
and it earned 1816 the title of The Year Without a Summer.
Two, Norwegian rocket incident.
When Russian radar systems detected a missile
heading over their northern border in 1995,
the first thought was that the United States
had sent a preemptive nuclear attack.
With no time to lose, they quickly sounded the high alert
and prepared for war.
Russian commanders waited with baited breath
for the launch commands.
Luckily, before the order could be given,
Russian observers watched the presumative missiles
drop harmlessly into the Arctic Ocean.
To date, the incident has been the only time
that the Russians have brought out
the so-called nuclear briefcase,
the device that in the hands of the Russian president
can send the command to send
thousands of nuclear missiles towards an enemy.
An hour later, Russia learned the rocket was launched
by a team of American and Norwegian scientists
as a part of an experiment studying the Northern Lights.
President Boris Yeltsin later commented
that this was the closest Russia had ever been
to staging an attack on the United States.
One, Marine Isotope Stage Six.
Around 195,000 to 123,000 years ago,
the Earth was nearly wiped by
a catastrophic natural phenomenon.
Known as the Marine Isotope Stage Six,
the global climate experienced
extreme temperature fluctuations,
including severe cold and unbearable heat.
Areas with a growing population,
including Africa, were hit with deadly climate changes.
So have you ever accidentally almost destroyed the world?
Let us know in the comments below,
or Tweet your answers to us @List25.
(upbeat music)
Enjoying our lists?
Be sure to click that Subscribe button on the bottom right
and the notification bell so you don't miss out
on new ones every Monday through Friday.
Share them with friends and help us
consistently conciliate curiosity.
And, if you want even more lists,
check out these videos here,
or just head to our website at list25.com.