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.
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