From ancient eruptions to modern nuclear meltdowns, these catastrophes forever altered human history. Join us as we explore devastating events that shaped our world in unexpected ways. From engineering failures to natural calamities, these disasters taught humanity painful but necessary lessons that changed how we build, travel, and respond to future threats.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00It's strange to be here, he says. The entire city is now a ghost town.
00:06Welcome to WatchMojo. Today we're looking at disasters that played a pivotal role in human
00:10history. Four-hour criteria were excluding all deliberate disasters, such as terrorism.
00:16It was almost surreal, the dust. There's nowhere you can run.
00:24The Challenger space shuttle disaster.
00:27Looks like a couple of the solid rocket boosters blew away from the side of the shuttle
00:34in an explosion. NASA suffered repeated delays when attempting to launch the Challenger.
00:38Eventually, they grew tired and forced to launch in less than ideal conditions.
00:43On board was school teacher Krista McAleff, who brought Challenger significant media attention.
00:49As such, they felt more pressure than usual to launch.
00:53There was a sense of relief that the much-delayed flight was finally underway.
00:57Engines at 65 percent, three engines running normally, three good fuel cells, three good APUs.
01:02Morton-Thiokol engineers warned NASA about the dangers of launching in cold temperatures,
01:07which they decided to ignore. This decision proved to be one of the largest mistakes in
01:12space travel. The engineers' worst fears came true. The shuttle exploded horrifically,
01:17with no survivors. Since then, space agencies have learned to be as cautious as possible,
01:22and never to ignore their engineers' warnings. Then the bland chilling report.
01:27We have a report from the flight dynamics officer that the vehicle has exploded.
01:31San Francisco earthquake. Most of the city at that time was wood frame construction,
01:36but there were some steel frame buildings. And so the earthquake did a lot of damage
01:40across the city. But of course, most of the damage was actually due to the fire that then
01:44followed the earthquake. America's Pacific coast is right on the border between two tectonic plates.
01:50This makes it a region highly susceptible to earthquakes. The most devastating came in 1906,
01:56primarily affecting San Francisco. To this day, it remains California's deadliest natural disaster.
02:02Around three thousand tragically lost their lives, and eighty percent of the city was destroyed.
02:07Its primary impact on history was motivating stricter building codes across the country,
02:12especially in areas susceptible to earthquakes. It caused major advances in earthquake science,
02:18like elastic rebound theory, which was discovered by directly studying the event.
02:22Titanic. Before sailing, its creators were convinced the ship was unsinkable.
02:31This hubris led to overconfidence, safety oversights, and poor decision making,
02:36causing one of humanity's worst maritime disasters. It was equipped with lifeboats
02:40for about half the passengers, with a crew poorly trained in disaster protocol.
02:45It was a tragic example of the disastrous consequences of excessive arrogance.
02:57On the bright side, humans began to take maritime safety seriously. They applied this knowledge
03:02to HMHS Britannic, Titanic's sister ship. This ship was equipped with enough lifeboats for
03:08everyone, but it would ultimately suffer a similar fate, sinking in the Aegean in 1916.
03:14This was because of a German mine, though, a much harder disaster to avoid.
03:26The Great Fire of London. The heat would have been unbearable,
03:30and over the ever-present sound of flames, you'd have been able to hear the screams
03:34of terrified residents. In 1665, the bubonic plague returned to London for one last fight.
03:40In 18 months, it killed approximately 25% of the city's population.
03:45Things got worse for Londoners in 1666, when a tremendous fire destroyed most of the city.
03:52Surprisingly few people died, but more than 10,000 buildings were destroyed.
04:04Estimates claim it did roughly 10 million pounds of damage, equivalent to over 2 billion pounds
04:09today. One consequence of the disaster was the first ever insurance company, the Fire Office.
04:15They employed watermen to put out fires, if you paid a fee, of course. Additionally,
04:20London was rebuilt with extra care taken to reduce the risks of fire.
04:33The Dust Bowl. In Garden City, Kansas, the local hardware store sold out of goggles.
04:39Then, the train delivering a new supply was delayed by a dust storm.
04:45The Great Depression was a time of severe economic crisis for the world. It was primarily caused by
04:49the stock market crash of 1929, but a few years later, the Dust Bowl would make things even worse.
04:55The 1920s was a period of immense wealth, where millions of acres were turned into farmland.
05:01It was an agricultural boom, which caused excessive farming that damaged the soil's
05:06natural structure. This meant that high winds caused humongous dust storms. Farms were quickly
05:17turned into deserts, displacing millions. The Depression was a man-made disaster,
05:22exacerbated by nature. We learned to shift our farming techniques, focusing on
05:27sustainable agriculture, which has thankfully prevented a repeat of the disaster.
05:36Pompeii.
05:49In the first century, the city of Pompeii was wiped off the map by Mount Vesuvius. It stunned
05:55the Romans, who opted to abandon the area for generations. Its short-term effects were
05:59significant, setting a precedent for disaster responses. In the long term, it became more
06:04monumental. This is because it was preserved amazingly well by ash, giving us a snapshot
06:21of Roman life. For archaeologists, it's a treasure trove of information, and has taught us tons.
06:27Fascinatingly, it's also arguably the first natural disaster we have an eyewitness account of.
06:33These are two letters sent by Pliny the Younger, who described the eruption in terrifying detail.
06:45Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster. These spent fuel rods were still highly radioactive.
06:51If the pools boiled dry, they could catch fire, and the contamination could be even worse than
06:57from a reactor meltdown. In 2011, Japan experienced the most devastating nuclear
07:02disaster this century. There were reportedly few, if any, direct deaths, but at least 160,000
07:09residents were displaced, and few have moved back. It had a severe consequence, with the global
07:14attitude towards nuclear energy becoming largely negative. This is unfortunate, since newer thorium
07:20reactors are exceedingly safe. So the rusty steel frames of the structure. That's the original
07:26structure where it was blown off by the hydrogen explosion. Additionally, they create minimal waste,
07:32making them appealing eco-friendly energy sources. For example, Germany has begun phasing out nuclear
07:37energy. China and India went in the other direction, with the Fukushima disaster convincing
07:42them to invest in safer types of reactors. Hopefully, these endeavors will be successful,
07:47which will cause a golden age for safe, environmentally friendly nuclear power.
07:52More than 400 are dead, almost 1,000 still missing. Entire neighbourhoods are underwater,
08:00and the world watches as two nuclear reactors remain dangerously unstable.
08:15If you know an Irish person, they have an above-average chance of having hemochromatosis,
08:20also known as iron overload. People with it have more iron in their body than usual,
08:25a beneficial trait during a famine. This is only one of the many effects the Irish famine had,
08:31a famine caused by infected potato crops. At least one million died, and almost twice that
08:36amount emigrated, many to America. Before the famine, eight million people lived in Ireland.
08:41Currently, that number sits around five million, showing Ireland has never completely recovered
08:46from the catastrophe. It also fuelled Irish nationalism, with Britain's lacklustre response
08:51intensifying resentment. Some historians even consider it a genocide, but others argue it was
08:57simply neglect. Even today, in the 21st century, Ireland has still not returned to the population
09:06levels of 1845. The Chernobyl disaster. The disaster was sparked by massive explosions
09:13that tore the roof off of Chernobyl's reactor number four, spewing radioactive dust into the
09:19atmosphere. Many consider the Chernobyl disaster to have been the most devastating nuclear accident
09:24in history. In 1986, the nuclear reactor failed, a meltdown that caused at least 30 deaths and the
09:30evacuation of at least 68,000 people. There were major design flaws in the reactor, but it was
09:35primarily caused by human error. The fire in Chernobyl's reactor number four was more radioactive
09:42than Hiroshima and Nagasaki combined, potentially deadly even today. A safety test was conducted
09:49during the night by operators with insufficient training. The Soviet Union tried its best to cover
09:54it up, partially leading to Gorbachev's glasnost policy, which increased government transparency.
10:00While it wasn't the direct cause of the Soviet Union's fall, it contributed heavily. It also
10:04massively shifted public opinion on nuclear power. The Black Death
10:34At that point, none of them knew they were suffering from the most devastating disease in
10:39history. Bubonic Plague. Perhaps 50% of the population of Europe died during the 14th
10:47century plague pandemic. It was initially carried by fleas living on rats. With little to no
10:52understanding of that fact, it decimated Europe. This immense death caused a severe labor shortage,
10:58which in turn caused food shortages. It weakened the power of feudal lords, shifting the balance
11:03of power from landowners to workers. Survivors bargained for better living conditions, higher
11:08wages, and more freedom. This shift also allowed the merchant class to grow, causing an increase
11:24in trade and industry in towns. Commerce was more valuable than land ownership, encouraging a
11:29consumer economy, and thus the rise of capitalism. So, without this pandemic, feudalism may have
11:35stuck around for longer. Which disaster do you believe had the most profound effects on
11:53humanity's trajectory? Let us know in the comments.
11:59And don't forget to subscribe and ring the bell to be notified about our latest videos.