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These events have forever altered our world and collective consciousness. Join us as we examine the most devastating moments that have shaped our century, from terrorist attacks to natural disasters and global crises. Our countdown covers tragedies that have profoundly impacted humanity through widespread suffering, loss of life, and lasting sociopolitical consequences.
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00:00He was a bit withdrawn, he wasn't very sociable in a way, but he had no extreme tendencies back then.
00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at significant global and regional events since the year 2000
00:11that have caused widespread suffering, loss of life, and profound psychological, social, and geopolitical impact.
00:18We're focusing on events that left an indelible mark on humanity,
00:22altering our collective consciousness and shaping the world we live in.
00:26We are learning the names, seeing some of the faces of the young victims, all of them first graders.
00:32September 11th attacks.
00:34My responsibility right now is to assess what the information is and what the mental health needs are going to be in New York City as well as around the state.
00:43They are also asking that we do not call the New York City area.
00:47If you want to check on relatives and loved ones, they expect to have a number within the next couple of hours for emergency services
00:53and to find out about someone that may be living in the area.
00:57The dawn of the 21st century was marred by an act of terror that profoundly reshaped global consciousness.
01:03On a clear Tuesday morning, 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial airliners.
01:09Two planes were deliberately crashed into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City,
01:14while the third struck the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia.
01:17A fourth hijacked plane, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania,
01:24after passengers historically fought back against the hijackers.
01:28Maybe 10 minutes later, they got back on and said, maybe you can see some smoke from the Manhattan area,
01:34but apparently there has been hijacking and they believe a 767 was flown into the World Trade Center.
01:42So everybody on the plane just gasped and tried to catch their breath.
01:47They said, we're going to turn the plane around and go back to Rochester.
01:50Nearly 3,000 lives were lost across these sites, including hundreds of first responders who rushed into harm's way.
01:56The attacks triggered a global war on terror, leading to extensive military campaigns
02:01and significant shifts in international and domestic security policies that continue to this day.
02:07And there are still efforts underway to positively ID the remains of 40% of the victims.
02:13Three new identifications were made as recently as this summer.
02:16President Trump is honoring the day at the Pentagon and then flying to New York City tonight for the Yankees game.
02:22Is the anniversary still hard?
02:25Yeah.
02:26Sometimes you can turn it off like a switch and just get through it and others are harder.
02:30Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
02:32Tsunamis here are a lot less common.
02:35And that's why only last year, governments bordering the ocean decided not to put an expensive warning system in place.
02:44Had it been operational, who knows how many of the thousands of people who died could have been saved.
02:51Barely five years into the new millennium, the world witnessed a natural catastrophe of unprecedented scale.
02:57On December 26th, 2004, a massive undersea earthquake off the coast of Sumatra, Indonesia unleashed a series of devastating tsunami waves.
03:07The earthquake that triggered the tsunami was bigger than all the quakes in the last five years worldwide put together.
03:14But scientists watching these traces could only stand and stare.
03:18They would have known there was a risk.
03:19These colossal waves, some reaching heights of 100 feet, propagated across the Indian Ocean, sinking coastal communities in 14 countries with little to no warning.
03:37The sheer force of the water obliterated entire towns, displacing millions and causing widespread destruction.
03:43With a staggering death toll exceeding 230,000 people, it stands as one of the deadliest natural disasters in recorded history.
03:52The immense loss sparked a monumental global humanitarian response and led to significant advancements in tsunami early warning systems.
04:01I feel dismay. It's been 20 years.
04:04I came here every day.
04:07Time flies, but it passes slowly in our minds.
04:11Hurricane Katrina.
04:12Ray Nagin will get the updated information on his city's preparedness for Hurricane Katrina.
04:17The storm is intensifying and is still pointed toward New Orleans and is not a meteorologist or an expert that I have talked to that says that this storm will not impact New Orleans in a major way.
04:31The Gulf Coast of the United States experienced a calamitous blow in late August 2005, revealing deep-seated vulnerabilities in infrastructure and emergency preparedness.
04:42Hurricane Katrina, an extremely powerful tropical cyclone, made landfall as a category three storm, but its most devastating impact came from the catastrophic failure of New Orleans' levee system.
04:54The water is getting too deep and it's getting deeper.
04:57We're told there's a hospital about six blocks away and we're going to try to make it there.
05:00Each encounter gets more and more profound.
05:03We got people in three-story houses that's still trying to survive in the houses.
05:08An airboat offers to take us to the hospital, but it sinks in the maze of tight corners.
05:13Over 80% of the city was submerged under floodwaters, with some areas under 15 feet of water, trapping thousands and displacing millions along the Gulf Coast.
05:23The storm and its aftermath led to approximately 1,392 fatalities, making it one of the deadliest hurricanes in U.S. history and the costliest, with damages estimated at $125 billion.
05:37The event highlighted stark social inequalities and led to a re-evaluation of disaster response strategies nationwide.
05:46And this is where, again, where the water went underneath the sheet pile and compromised the foundation of the levee system.
05:53So this kind of shows you how big the breach was.
05:55Yes, absolutely.
05:57But it never came over, it came under.
05:59It came under.
06:00And then just pushed it down.
06:02Haiti earthquake.
06:02This woman led us into the back of what was left of her home.
06:07Oh my gosh.
06:08Then, as we were speaking with her.
06:10You have six children?
06:11Get out, get out, get out.
06:12More tremors.
06:13Go, go, go, go, go, go.
06:16We just had to leave the building because there was an aftershock, so everyone who was inside had to come back out.
06:23Already one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti was thrust into an even deeper humanitarian crisis in January 2010.
06:31A catastrophic magnitude 7.0 earthquake struck near the capital, Port-au-Prince, on January 12th, causing widespread and immediate devastation.
06:41The shallow depth of the quake and poor building construction led to the collapse of countless structures, including government buildings, hospitals, and homes.
06:49From the roof, rescuers enter a hole, slither on their stomachs five feet, to another hole, drop down, and create another hole.
06:57Me and the other brothers worked for about two and a half hours to get through about 12 inches of concrete.
07:02It's slow, claustrophobic work in the dark.
07:05It's a little nerve-wracking just to know that, you know, if there's any tremors or anything, things can change very quickly.
07:11The exact death toll remains debated, but estimates suggest hundreds of thousands perished, with millions more left injured or homeless.
07:18The disaster overwhelmed the nation's fragile infrastructure, and sparked an immense international aid effort that struggled with the sheer scale of the destruction and subsequent challenges.
07:29Food and water supplies are day-to-day.
07:32It is very urgent. It is an emergency. It is a matter of life and death.
07:40Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.
07:42You can only really understand the enormity when you see these pictures. An earthquake so strong, it literally shifted the Earth's axis by about 25 centimeters.
07:52Japan, a nation accustomed to seismic activity, faced a triple disaster of epic proportions in March 2011.
07:59On the 11th, a massive magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off the coast of Tohoku, triggering a monstrous tsunami that engulfed coastal areas.
08:08The waves reached heights of up to 128 feet in some places, traveling miles inland and sweeping away entire towns.
08:16That tsunami reached 23 feet high in some places, nearly twice the height of me standing on Chris's shoulders, for example.
08:24And that wall of water is primarily the cause of a death toll that is in the hundreds, but is certain to rise, with 88,000 people in Japan still unaccounted for.
08:34The tsunami also caused the Fukushima Daiachi nuclear disaster, leading to meltdowns in three reactors and the release of radioactive materials.
08:43The official death toll was nearly 20,000, with thousands more injured or missing and hundreds of thousands displaced, forever altering the landscape and the nation's emergency policy.
08:54Norway attacks.
08:56Nearby today, the wounded recover, including Adrian Precone, who played dead to stay alive. He was hit in the shoulder.
09:03I was lying perfectly still, and someone fell down right in front of me, so I hid behind the dead person.
09:11I could hear him breathe, and I could hear his boots when he was walking.
09:16On July 22nd, far-right extremist Anders Behring Breivik carried out two domestic terrorist attacks.
09:24The day began with a car bomb explosion in Oslo's government quarter, killing eight people and injuring many more.
09:30Less than two hours later, disguised as a police officer, Breivik traveled to the island of Utøya and opened fire on a workers' youth league summer camp.
09:40The combination of the bomb explosion here with the shooting at the youth camp of the Labour Party, the Young Labour Party, that makes this to really, really a serious attack.
09:53The prime minister and royal family visited grieving relatives.
09:57He methodically murdered 69 participants, mostly teenagers and young adults, in a prolonged and terrifying shooting spree.
10:05The attacks, which killed a total of 77 people, profoundly shocked Norway and forced a national reckoning with extremism and vulnerability.
10:14Now in custody, Breivik has been told he will have no visitors bar his lawyer. His father has no urge to contact him.
10:24No, I will never have more contact with him. In my darkest moments, I think that rather than killing all those people, he should have taken his own life.
10:31Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.
10:33But the killing that happened here is breaking hearts from one corner of this vast country to another.
10:39Here in Newtown, 26 Christmas trees placed today on the road to the school, one for every victim who died there.
10:45In Texas today, high schoolers coming together to sing in honor of those lost.
10:49The innocence of childhood was shattered in the most horrific way imaginable during this tragic event.
10:55On December 14th, 2012, a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and carried out one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history.
11:04In a chilling act of violence, 20 children aged six and seven were murdered, along with six adult staff members.
11:11The perpetrator had also killed his mother earlier that day, before taking his own life at the school.
11:16This unfathomable attack on elementary school students sparked a renewed, albeit fraught, national debate on gun control, mental health, and school safety.
11:26We met Counselor Sarah Cotrullia.
11:29It was like watching something that wasn't real.
11:31She watched as it dawned on the parents who'd been waiting as the others left, telling me they all knew the answer in that room, and yet they kept waiting.
11:39And then, being there, you know, seeing the individuals who I know were going in that room to hear how openers not pick up their kids, and then seeing them leave, just so distraught.
11:48Paris attacks.
11:49The French president has declared a state of emergency and has sealed the country's borders, but Leicester, we're hearing reports of shooters moving through that concert hall where the hostages were apparently taking, killing people one by one.
12:03People are taking to social media to say, someone, please help us.
12:06Europe's cultural heart was brutally targeted in a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on November 13th, 2015.
12:14Nine Islamic state group gunmen and suicide bombers struck within minutes of each other at popular night spots across Paris, including the Bataclan concert hall, restaurants, and outside the Stade de France.
12:26At the moment that I speak to you, terrorist attacks of an unprecedented level are happening in the Paris area.
12:32There are dozens dead.
12:34There are many injured.
12:35It's a horror.
12:35We have, at my command, mobilized all possible forces so that we can neutralize the terrorist threat and secure all the areas that could be affected.
12:44The attacks claimed 130 lives and left hundreds more wounded, making it the deadliest act of terrorism in France since World War II.
12:52The coordinated assault sent shockwaves across the continent, prompting a state of emergency in France and a significant escalation of anti-terrorist efforts globally.
13:02What you can't see behind me is a hospital where many of the injured would have been taken last night and people have actually been lining up there for hours, some of them as long as four hours to donate blood.
13:13It's one way, they've said, that helps them feel like they can keep the fear at bay.
13:17They want to feel like they are doing something to help.
13:19Many people say that they feel helpless and afraid.
13:22COVID-19 pandemic.
13:24Good evening.
13:25As the pandemic of coronavirus claims more lives around the world, the people of the United Kingdom are now being advised to make drastic changes to their day-to-day existence.
13:35Prime Minister Boris Johnson rejected criticism that his government had been slow to respond to the scale of this crisis.
13:41A silent, invisible foe emerged at the turn of the decade, bringing the world to a grinding halt and impacting virtually every facet of human existence.
13:51Beginning in late 2019, the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 rapidly spread across the globe, escalating into a pandemic that defied borders and overwhelmed health care systems.
14:02And things are so bad in Jackson, Mississippi now that they are having to open up a second emergency field hospital to handle their COVID-19 patients.
14:12Samaritan's Purse set up a new 32-bed mobile intensive care unit in Jackson inside of a parking garage at the University Medical Center.
14:21The illness, commonly referred to as COVID-19, claimed millions of lives worldwide, causing unprecedented societal disruption, economic shutdowns, and a global mental health crisis.
14:32Beyond the direct fatalities, the pandemic led to profound changes in work, education, travel, and social interaction, leaving an enduring legacy on global health, economy, and human behavior.
14:45The pandemic was associated with a rise in hospitalizations for mental health issues such as anxiety, self-harm, and eating disorders across Canada.
14:54That's according to a study conducted by Montreal researchers as a part of a larger project called POPCORN that looked into direct and indirect impacts of the pandemic.
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15:19After the U.S. warned all day of a full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine that it was imminent, Vladimir Putin has just addressed the Russian people moments ago,
15:32announcing what Putin called the start of a military special operation, in his words, to demilitarize Ukraine.
15:39That Russia would bring in troops, he told Ukrainian troops, to lay down arms and go home.
15:45The 21st century's most defining geopolitical trauma began in February 2022 with a full-scale military invasion that shattered decades of relative peace in Europe.
15:56Russia's unprovoked assault on Ukraine unleashed a brutal conventional war, characterized by widespread destruction, mass displacement, and undeniable humanitarian atrocities.
16:07Yeah, the distinct sound of explosions on the horizon here in Kiev, we've heard at least force, what appear to be strikes, lighting up the night sky.
16:16Just in the last, really, 10 minutes or so, as you say, it looks like the darkest day, has come to pass following this speech by Vladimir Putin.
16:26Millions of Ukrainians have been forced from their homes, becoming refugees or internally displaced persons,
16:32while countless lives have been lost, both military and civilian.
16:35The conflict has ignited profound global instability, impacting energy markets, food security, and international relations,
16:43while showcasing the devastating reality of modern warfare on a scale not seen in Europe since World War II.
16:49So the two major goals for Vladimir Putin is one, to kind of keep Ukraine close to Russia,
17:05Russia, and number two is to keep Ukraine away from the West.
17:09Did we miss any other deeply impactful moments?
17:12Let us know in the comments below.
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