Close calls that could have changed the course of history

[jw5]

Close calls that could have changed the course of history​

It is often taken for granted that we as a species have made it this far. From prehistory up to the present, the list of things that could have gone wrong is virtually endless. From natural disasters, to global pandemics, to frustratingly human problems that brought us far too close to the edge, it is certainly not just strategy and survival instinct that have brought humanity to the 21st century; a good deal of luck has been involved as well. Hopefully, studying the close calls of history that could have made our present reality radically different will help us to be more careful and prepared in the future.
Read on to learn about the catastrophic close calls that could have changed, or ended, life as we know it.

 

[jw5]

Toba Supervolcano​

One of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, the Toba Supervolcano in present-day Indonesia covered around 4,350 miles (7,000 km) of Southeast Asia in ash some 47,000 years ago, and spewed out 700 cubic miles (2,800 cubic km) of magma.

 

[jw5]

Toba Supervolcano​

Around the same time as the eruption, human life in the area dramatically decreased and was almost entirely wiped out. This was truly an apocalyptic event for the ancient peoples in the region. Today, the massive caldera of the volcano is filled with water and is referred to as Lake Toba (pictured).

 

[jw5]

NORAD training mix-up​

NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) dropped the ball in 1979, when a nuclear attack training tape was perceived as a real attack. Thankfully, there was a fair amount of skepticism involving the legitimacy of the warnings, and no counteraction was taken until the alarms were proven false.

 

[jw5]

4581 Asclepius​

There have been more than a couple of close calls involving stellar objects hurtling dangerously close to Earth. One such scare came in 1981, when the asteroid 4581 Asclepius whizzed by our planet. If the asteroid was just six hours earlier, it would have collided with Earth, with an impact 12 times stronger than a nuclear bomb.

 

[jw5]

The comet that killed the dinosaurs​

Known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary mass extinction, the comet that collided with Earth some 65 million years ago obliterated almost every sign of life on our planet. The fact that some small mammals and underwater critters were spared and able to repopulate the Earth is one of biological history's great strokes of luck.

 

[bushtucker]

How about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis?

 

[jw5]

How about the 1962 Cuban missile crisis?

Cuban Missile Crisis​

The closest the world has ever come to nuclear war was in 1962, during what is now known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. Just three people, John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev, and Fidel Castro, held the fate of humanity in their hands.

 

[jw5]

Cuban Missile Crisis​

When the USSR began building missile silos and transporting materials to their ally Cuba, the United States saw this as a direct provocation of war, and the parties involved became stuck in a nuclear standoff that forced the world to hold its breath for 13 days, until Khrushchev agreed to back out of his Cuban missile program.

 

[k1976]

The real deal ish Covid19 2020-21

 

[jw5]

Smallpox​

One of the most dangerous and resilient diseases in history, smallpox has dealt serious and almost irreparable damage to Earth's population on numerous occasions. Thankfully, an effective vaccine program was rolled out in the 20th century before the sinister sickness was given another chance.

 

[jw5]

NORAD strikes again​

During the Cold War, NORAD had a bit of a history of silly, potentially apocalyptic mistakes. In 1980, a microchip happened to bug out and falsely indicated that the USSR had sent no less than 220 nukes in the direction of the United States. President Jimmy Carter was only moments away from being advised to call a counterattack before the bug was found.

 

[jw5]

The Black Death​

An infamous and gruesome sickness that wiped out 60% of the European population in the 1300s, the Black Death set back civilization by an inestimable number of decades or even centuries, and could have easily brought an end to European civilization as we know it.

 

[jw5]

A fumbled hydrogen bomb​

On an average day in New Mexico in 1957, a plane transporting what was at the time the largest hydrogen bomb in existence, dropped that bomb by accident just outside of Albuquerque. The 42,000-pound (19,050-kg) bomb, by sheer luck, landed in a completely unpopulated area and didn't harm a soul, although it did leave a crater in the desert 12 feet (3.7 m) deep and 25 feet (7.6 m) wide.

 

[jw5]

2012 solar storm​

The Sun may seem incomprehensibly far away, but its own stellar events can have serious implications here on Earth. In 2012, for example, power grids and communication networks around the globe were almost completely destroyed by a solar storm flare that missed Earth by only a week.

 

[jw5]

The Carrington Event​

During a solar storm similar to the one that caused the scare in 2012, in 1859 a solar flare really did knock out global communications. Thankfully, entire governments, bank accounts, and livelihoods didn't depend on electricity the way they do today, but the collapse of the telegram system was relatively catastrophic for its time.

 

[jw5]

Mount Tambora eruption​

The entire globe was covered by the ash that was spread by this eruption. The Sun was completely blacked out for multiple days in Indonesia, and six feet (1.5 m) of ash covered the ground. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people died from the eruption, directly or indirectly.

 

[jw5]

Mount Tambora eruption​

The most destructive volcanic event in modern history, the 1815 eruption of Indonesia's Mount Tambora caused mass death, crop failures, and sudden and severe climate change.

 

[k1976]

1895 Sino Nippon War.... The Chinese naval inferior ammunitions failed to explored when they hit Imperial Japanese Flagship twice...

Should Chinese blew up the Nippon Flagship... Who knows, we have still have tl keep the pigtails, right, ah TiuTiu?

 

[jw5]

Chelyabinsk meteor​

Many might remember the feeling of terror when the Chelyabinsk meteor crashed in Southeastern Russia in 2013. The meteor's size and velocity gave it a power equitable to that of an atomic bomb, and it could have easily razed a city to the ground had it landed in a more populated area.