5 Times Humanity Came Close To Extinction

humankind is seven billion individual strong and we're still growing this staggering number might make you think that we're safe from extinction but that's just not the case many times throughout human history we have had our brushes with disaster that dwindled our numbers so much that we were in danger of extinction not only that we've had near misses in history that if they had happened would surely end up in tragedy and even complete annihilation of the human race in fact something exactly like that just happened in the beginning of June 2020 and we didn't even know what happened stay tuned for number one to find out just what had happened here are five times humanity came close to extinction with all that said and done let's begin shall we number five The Big Chill around 195 thousand years ago the world change the temperature drought to the winter and then dropped in the summer as well glaciers expanded entire habitats were destroyed the era is officially called a marine isotopes age six and informally called a glacial stage but it was likely more of an ice desert stage deserts expanded as well as glaciers and much of the world was cold and dry during this time our human ancestors in Africa split up they probably did this intentionally as groups had to leave or were driven out of shrinking habitable areas it also might have possibly happened by chance as they were not really known for staying at the same place for an extended period of time however it happened and it took a huge toll on the human population some actually believe that the entire human population shrank down to only 600 people the ones that did survive got both lucky and smart they were lucky because many of them happen to settle beside the scene what's now South Africa their particular spot of brown happened to be rich in plants as stored their energy and starchy tubers below the surface of the soil the water beside their area was warmish and nourished a supply of shellfish between the two humans managed to gather enough food to get by they helped themselves along though a cave called PP 1-3 be near pinnacle point in South Africa was evidence that the people there used the shellfish shells as tools it's also possible that they heated and tempered their stone tools making them more behaviorally modern than we previously thought another reason studies say that the last humans on Earth may have survived the Big Chill by retreating to a small patch of land and nicknamed the Garden of Eden the strip of land on Africa southern coast around 240 miles east of Cape Town became the only place that remained habitable during the devastating Ice Age this also means that scientists are suggesting that all humans were given rise by this small population who somehow cloned the life number for the Mount Toba eruption once upon a time around 70,000 BC a volcano called Toba on Sumatra in Indonesia went off blowing roughly 650 miles of vaporized rock into the air it is a largest volcanic eruption that we know of dwarf everything else before that and since that eruption dropped roughly 6 centimeters of ash the layer can actually still be seen on land over all of South Asia and the Indian Ocean and the Arabian and South China Sea according to the volcanic explosivity index the Toba eruption scored an 8 which translates to mega-colossal that's two orders of magnitude greater than the largest volcanic eruption in historic times at Mount Tambora in Indonesia which caused the 1816 year without a summer in the northern hemisphere we have so much ash dust and vapour in the air the eruption of Mount Toba dimmed the Sun for six years disrupted seasonal rain choked off streams and scattered whole cubic miles of hot ash across acres and acres of plants berries fruits trees African game became scarce early humans living in East Africa just across the Indian Ocean from Mount Toba probably starved and made their population plummet to critical levels but it didn't even end there the eruption also caused a massive drop in road temperature sending the earth on to yet another Ice Age evidence exists that shows certain parts in the world experience drops in temperature of 20 plus degrees after which the great grassy plains of Africa may have shrunk way back keeping the small bands of humans small and hungry for hundreds if not of more years it's quite hard to imagine but if small population of humans weren't able to survive this catastrophe we wouldn't be telling this story today possibly number three various plagues okay this one's a little on the nose for most of mankind's history infectious diseases were the existential threat to humanity and for good reason they were very very good at killing people during the reign of the Emperor Justinian the first of a Byzantine Empire one of the worst outbreaks the plague took place claiming the lives of millions of people the plague arrived in Constantinople in 542 C II almost a year after the disease first made its appearance in the outer province of the Empire the outbreak continued to sweep throughout the Mediterranean world for another 225 years finally disappearing at 750 C II the means of transmission of the plague was the black rat which traveled on the grain ships and carts sent to Constantinople as tribute North Africa in the 8th century CE II was the primary source of grain for the empire along with a number of different commodities including vapour oil ivory and slaves stored and vast warehouses the grain provided a perfect breeding ground for the fleece and rats crucial to the transmission of plague 20 to 40 percent of the inhabitants of Constantinople would eventually perish from the disease throughout the rest of the empire nearly 25% of the population died with estimates ranging from 25 to 50 million people in total and then we have the Black Death the plague arrived in Europe in October of 1347 when 12 ships from the Black Sea dogged at the Sicilian port of Messina but many years before the death ships pulled into a port of Messina many Europeans had heard rumors about a great pestilence that was carving a deadly path across the trade routes of the near and far east indeed in the early 13 40s the disease have struck China India Persia Syria and Egypt all in all this plague took the lives of an estimated 25 million a third of the world's population at that time if world trade was as open as it was now there was a distinct possibility that we would have been wiped out from the face of the earth now it's time for the day's best pic and today we're gonna be talking about a point in history when with the literal push of a button we would not be standing here today number two nuclear holocaust the destruction and devastation caused by nuclear weapons is well known among the people who have either witnessed or studied the bombing of Japan by the United States during the Second World War after the Second World War scientists believed that it would take between ten and a hundred nuclear bombs to put the entire human race to an end the radiation caused by the nuclear explosion makes the air toxic and poisonous this may be far-fetched to you but there have been many times when the entire planet was at the crosshairs of nuclear holocaust the entire duration of the Cold War is a prime example this point in time in our history marked a period of rising tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States of America throughout the second half of the 20th century these two super powers held extremely different economic and political beliefs which furthered even the divide between the states the Soviet Union practiced a communist form of government with complete governmental control of property wealth and education on the other hand the United States promoted a free and capitalist form of government characterized by democratic elections and privately held businesses or organizations this ideological difference between the superpowers put them in direct opposition to one another as a result competition arose in many areas including the development of new technology and military weapons the most important being the nuclear bomb four years after the u.s. successfully dropped its first bomb the Soviets developed theirs with deterrence at the core of foreign policy both sides worked to increase their arms stock this resulted in the u.s. spending six trillion dollars on its nuclear weapons program containing 10,000 nuclear warheads while Russia had only half as many although the arms race was meant to increase each state security it backfired in several instances for example in the 1950s the Soviets issued a nuclear threats against Western allies and coup the British and French during the Suisse crisis tensions rose and consequently accumulated in the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 which was the close of the world has ever been to nuclear war before we move on I've got a little challenge for you that I'll take five seconds to complete so here's the deal he does leave a like on this video smash that subscribe button hit the notification bell and you look at 25 years of amazing luck try it really works number one the near miss did you know that we barely miss catastrophe just a few weeks ago oh you didn't well me neither until I did my research for this list that just shows how quickly life on Earth can disappear not with a slow burn with a big bang an asteroid larger than a football field zoom past the earth at a distance closer than our moon in early June it should be fine as long as we had advance warning am i right the thing is astronomers didn't know about it until it had already passed the asteroid is the largest passing of the planet in nine years and it would have been big and fast enough to deliver a nuclear sized explosion if it had hit the earth that's at least according to Purdue University's impact predictor NASA data shows the asteroid - known as 2020 LD was discovered on June 7th two days after it whizzed between the earth and the moon the asteroid was between 89 and 200 metres wide and passive than 360 thousand kilometers of the planet that's about 80% of the distance of the moon mind you the asteroid terrestrial impact lasts alert system or Atlas located in Hawaii spotted the asteroid on June 7th and followed its trajectory to figure out where it's going and where it came from the analysis revealed that Atlas a NASA funded project that specifically looks out for planet or city killing asteroids completely missed this one when it passed by Earth on June 5th in truth dozens of asteroids passed harmlessly between the Earth and the moon every year they're either too small to do significant damage or their trajectories will completely miss the earth even though they'll be passing dangerously close by the last big scare occurred in 2019 when a 100 meter wide asteroid seemingly came of nowhere and passed within seventy three thousand kilometers of earth the potential city killer known as 2019 okay came from the direction of the Sun and was not spotted until the last minute the asteroid might have been big enough to leave a kilometer wide crater similar to the one in Flagstaff Arizona however a size is just one factor in determining the potential impact of an asteroid its speed and angle when it hits the earth also affect its destructive power what if 2020 LD hit the earth at a speed that's great enough and at an angle sharp enough to cause another mass extinction we would definitely not be expecting it but honestly at 2020 I don't think we'd be that surprised with everything else going on do you feel lucky to be alive let us know in the comments section down below want to watch more amazing videos click on any of the videos you see on your screen as always thank you all for watching and I'll see you all next time later everybody [Music]

Channel: Top 5 Best

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Id: SAPVQxvVoec

Length: 11min 42sec (702 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 24 2020