I’m Mr. Beat
How are you? What have you been up to today?
Oh neat! I’ve heard about that! The world is going to end really
soon. (dark music) (thunder) “We are now at 90 seconds to midnight.” See? I TOLD you the world was
going to end soon. Wait a second, they’re still standing there.
Hello? Well that’s kind of creepy. Anyway, that’s the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic
metaphor that represents how likely it is that a human-made, worldwide disaster will kill us all.
The closer it is to midnight, the closer we are to that actually happening. Members of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists have been revealing how close we are to global destruction going back all
the way to 1947. That year, they revealed we were SEVEN minutes to midnight, and, as you can see on
this graph, it’s gone up and down ever since. Oh wow, the 1990s were great. Maybe all the nostalgia
I have for that decade is justified after all. In fact, in 1991, it was the furthest from
midnight we’ve ever been. 17 minutes! Wow. So why was it so far from midnight back then?
Well, that was right after the United States and Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms
Reduction Treaty, the biggest weapons reduction treaty in world history. It ultimately
resulted in the removal of around 80% of all nuclear weapons in existence. Well that’s
a START. Uh, yeah…S-T-A-R-T were the initials of the treaty. And listen here, buddy- we DON’T
want nuclear weapons to be dropped. Like….EVER. What is a nuclear weapon you ask? Oh, I thought
you asked that. You didn’t? Well I’m gonna tell you anyway. A nuclear weapon is a gigantic bomb
created from the release of nuclear energy. This is caused by either nuclear fission, or splitting
the nucleus of an atom….or nuclear fusion, or the combining of subatomic particles. Nuclear
weapons have only been used in warfare twice in world history- during World War Two by the United
States- which just so happens to be when nuclear weapons were also first tested. One was dropped
over Hiroshima, Japan, and another over Nagasaki, Japan. Just those two bombs killed hundreds of
thousands of people, and they ultimately caused Japan’s government to surrender in the war. Since
the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, governments have dropped nuclear weapons
more than 2,000 times, believe it or not. Oh but don’t worry, they did it for testing and
demonstration purposes, and they dropped them in areas where no humans lived- well a lot of humans
still got cancer from these tests, actually. Radioactive fallout from these tests may be
responsible for as many as 690,000 American deaths alone. Uhhh what? Today there are
an estimated 12,500 nuclear warheads still in existence. Around 90% of those nukes are
owned by either the United States or Russia, or what’s today left of the former
Soviet Union. Other countries that still have nukes are the United Kingdom,
France, Pakistan, India, China, Israel, and…yayyyy…North Korea apparently has 30
nukes…great goobly moobly. Props to South Africa for being the only country in the world to develop
nuclear weapons and later dismantle all of them. Now, as if you WEREN’T already freaking
out right now, I will now likely further increase your anxiety by telling you
that the nuclear bombs of today are WAYYYYYYY more destructive than the nuclear
bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Russians dropped the largest bomb in
history on October 30, 1961. It was called Tsar Bomba…that’s Russian for “King of Bombs.” They
dropped it way up here- far from human settlement, and thank goodness for that because, according to
some estimates, it was more than 3,000 times more powerful than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. It
created a nuclear fireball hotter than the sun two miles wide. The blast caused windows to shatter
500 MILES AWAY. Witnesses could see the flash of the explosion 600 MILES AWAY. Even being 50
miles away you’d get third degree burns from it. It would have easily destroyed Los Angeles…oh and
I don’t mean just the CITY of Los Angeles…I mean GREATER Los Angeles. If a bomb the size
of Tsar Bomba exploded over Los Angeles, I estimate that up to 18 million people
would be killed from both the blast and the radiation caused by it. You heard that
correctly. One bomb killing 18 million people. Now, the fear is that if one government
were to ever use a nuclear weapon, the government of the country hit by one
would retaliate. The next thing you know, it could spiral out of control. Nukes
dropped everywhere and we’re all dead. This fear was THE FEAR that was
everywhere during the Cold War. Come on, you know what the Cold War is. It’s
so easy that even my Kid Brother can define it. Steven: The Cold War was a state of political
hostility that existed between the United States and their allies and the Soviet
Union and their allies from 1945 to 1991. People were so afraid of getting hit
by a nuclear weapon during the Cold War that they built fallout shelters
and told students to hide underneath their desks if a nuke was coming down.
Wait…what the heck. Why the heck? Ok, yeah. That DEFINITELY would not protect
y’all from a nuke. What are you even doing? Anyway, the end of the Cold War in
1991 got rid of much of those fears of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, though,
the Doomsday Clock has been headed straight for midnight ever since. In recent years,
the threat of nuclear war has returned, and it hasn’t been the ONLY thing the
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have been worried about. They’ve also said the lack
of support for taking action in response to climate change has led to the Doomsday Clock
being closer to midnight. As you saw earlier, the Doomsday Clock is currently at 90 seconds
to midnight. What caused it to move closer to midnight than it’s ever been? The Russian invasion
of Ukraine that began in February 2022, which, in their view, increases the risk of nuclear
escalation, as Russia has stopped destroying its nukes. Not only that, North Korea has continued
talking trash about dropping nuclear weapons. But the thing is, there were times in recent
history in which the Doomsday Clock actually would have arguably been…like…at ONE SECOND to midnight.
We just didn’t realize it until later on. And that’s what this video’s about. Here are three times the world
almost ended. (dark music) But before the world ends…uh…I mean…before we get
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for sponsoring this video. Ok, here are three times the world almost
ended (long pause) well, for humans, at least. -October 27, 1962- It all started after the United States repeatedly
tried to secretly overthrow Fidel Castro, the leader of Cuba, an island country
pretty close to the United States. Well, it failed to overthrow him, but instead just made
Nikita Krushchev, the leader of the Soviet Union, angry, as Cuba was an ally. Krushchev
decided to hide some nuclear missiles on the island. Well THIS made the United
States, led by President John F. Kennedy, pretty freaking nervous, you could say, since
those missiles were directly pointed at the United States and could reach American cities
pretty quickly…I might add. Kennedy ordered a naval blockade that surrounded Cuba. He demanded
the immediate removal of the nuclear weapons. He also told Krushchev that any attack on
the United States from Cuba would trigger nuclear retaliation against the Soviet Union.
But Krushchev didn’t budge, and this led to a really tense standoff. The whole ordeal later
became known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was during this tense standoff, on October
27, 1962, when an American spy plane was shot down by a Soviet missile. On that very same day,
an American naval ship dropped an underwater bomb on a Soviet nuclear submarine off the coast of
Cuba. The Soviet commanders in the submarine, who couldn’t communicate with other
ships since they were so deep, assumed that war had already begun, and they
prepared to launch a nuclear torpedo. However, all three commanders on board had to agree
to move forward with the launch. Two of them agreed to launch the nuke, one of them did
not. That naval officer who prevented the nuclear torpedo launch was Vasily Arkhipov
. There’s a strong argument to be made that Arkhipov almost single-handedly prevented
World War Three from starting on that day. Seriously, this one man basically saved the world,
and he never even got a Nobel Peace Prize for it. Anyway, the crisis ended the next day
after Kennedy agreed to remove a bunch of missiles near the Soviet Union in exchange
for Krushchev removing all the missiles in Cuba. September 26, 1983 In the early 1980s, relations were once
again particularly tense between the United States and the Soviet
Union. Things were so tense, in fact, that the Soviets shot down a
PASSENGER plane that had accidentally flown into prohibited airspace. The Soviets
assumed it was an American spy plane. Oops. But it’s understandable why the Soviets
might think it was an American spy plane, ok? You see, for the previous two and half
years, the United States kept messing with the Soviets. They’d repeatedly fly bomber
planes directly toward the Soviet Union, only to turn away from Soviet
airspace at the very last moment. Three and a half weeks after this, on September
26, 1983, a lieutenant colonel of the Soviet Air Defence Forces named Stanislav Petrov
got reports that five nuclear missiles were headed toward the Soviet Union. However,
Petrov suspected it might be a false alarm, based on the fact that he had been told an
American nuclear missile strike would likely mean LOTS of nuclear missiles would all come
at the same time, not just five. He decided to wait to respond, waiting for a confirmation of
a nuclear attack from alternative sources. Well, that confirmation never came. Petrov’s
instincts were right- it was a false alarm. A later investigation proved that the
Soviet satellite warning system malfunctioned. If another dude might have been in his
place, it’s very possible HE would have freaked out about nukes heading their way,
which in turn would lead to retaliation, so again, props to another guy
who basically saved the world. Before he died in 2017, Petrov
won several awards and even was featured in a documentary about his level
headedness during those tense moments. The next time the world almost ended was,
believe it or not, just over a month later. November 7, 1983 First of all, let me explain what NATO is,
although I do have a whole video about NATO. No, NATO! NATO is an acronym that stands for the
North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance of 31 European
and North American mostly democratic countries formed in 1949 to unite against
the Soviet Union and Communism in general. By the early 1980s, NATO forces were
regularly conducting military exercises that simulated a Soviet attack- basically,
they were practicing for war. On November 7, 1983, these military exercises included
new stuff like coded communication, radio silences, heads of government getting
involved like President Ronald Reagan, and even air lifting 19,000 American troops in
Europe. Well this got the Soviets attention, alright. They began to think that NATO forces
might be doing all this as a distraction while they actually planned a real nuclear attack. The
Soviet military mobilized, and Soviet nuclear capable aircraft was prepared to launch, man.
Since the Soviet Union believed its only chance of surviving a NATO attack was to preempt it,
it wouldn’t have taken much for them to attack. Fortunately, that never happened, after the NATO military exercise ended
on November 11, Soviet forces stood down. Nine days after THIS close call, more than 100
million people watched a made-for-TV movie about a nuclear war between the United States and
the Soviet Union called The Day After. Much of it is set in my hometown of Lawrence, by
the way. The movie arguably played a pivotal role in easing the tense relations between
the United States and the Soviet Union and literally changed President Reagan’s mind
about how the Cold War was going. After that, he changed his tone with the Russians,
calling for the reduction of nuclear weapons. One crazy thing to think about is that
you may be watching this video right now or listening…I do realize many of you don’t
like to look at my face…whatever. But yeah, you may be consuming this video right now and
there might be a nuke about to be launched. Did you hear that? A nuke possibly just almost got
launched! And we won’t find out about this for a long time. If that nuke does get launched, though,
thank you for liking and watching this video. I guess that doesn’t matter much anymore, though,
does it. I guess it’s all over for all of us. But anyway…yeah…my point was that
you likely wouldn’t know about it until much later. That’s because
the good people of the world who are trying to protect all of us from global
catastrophes don’t want to cause mass panic. Simply put, the fine folks who, every day
protect our butts from nuclear disaster, are heroes. If you’re one of those
fine folks- thank you. Thank you for preventing the end of the world.
We all owe a drink, at the very least. Ya know, there were OTHER close calls. For those
interested, Wikipedia has a comprehensive list of every nuclear close call in history…that we
know of. Keep in mind that the vast majority of stuff on the list was just accidents. Accidents
in which we were lucky a nuke didn’t explode. By the way, I highly recommend this book-
Command and Control by Eric Schlosser (shlosser). It goes into great detail
about three of those nuclear close calls. Thank you to all of my Patreon supporters and
channel members. One perk they get is early access to new videos. One perk that my supporters who
donate to me at least $15 or month to my channel get is a monthly shout out. And guess what? It’s
time for that monthly shout out. Starting with my biggest donors and reverse alphabetically, thank
you to Trevon Jones, Sean Conant, Robert Kandell, Psycho, Patrick Steward, Pat Iapicca, Nik
Everett, Nicolas Dronsky, NeoR14, Michael Cortez, Joe Cook, Jesus Carillo, Jeremy Dunham, Isaiah
Warfield, Isabelle, Fletch Fick, emptymachine, Dr. Paul J. Lilly, Derek Williams, “Defender
of Communism,” Corey Rieman, Austin Siros, Anthony Beckett, Andrew B., Alvino V, Alicia
Solberg, Zachary F Parker, Thomas Oppenheim, Steven Ison, Steve Bryan, Stacey, Salty, Raquell
Jones, Oliver E., Naterade, Michael Schillo, Michael Burt, Justin Love, Jules Gingras,
Joel Serrano Lozada, Jennifer, Jakob Birnbaum, Jacob Ginsberg, Jack L, Erik Hernandez, Emily
Glover-Wilson Chums McGuffey, Andrew Schneider, Aditya Anand, and Adam Christians.
You all rock. And you do, too. Thanks for watching. Hopefully the world
doesn’t end before this comes out.
