Since the beginning of time, humanity has been under the spell of the end of the world. Even now we still cannot agree about global warming with the end of humanity as a result. And everyone still remembers the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012. However, it appears that we have already survived some of these ‘apocalypse’ …
The plague
The first event that convinced people that this meant the end of the world is the Black Death. The plague that ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351 is the biggest catastrophe that Europe has ever experienced. During the plague, between 75 and 200 million people died, and humanity was convinced that this was the end of the world as described in the Bible.
Ice age
Although it started almost 2.6 million years ago, the last ice age ended only 11,700 years ago. This means that humanity has not only survived the ice age, but it also made us who we are today. Although we now crawl under a blanket when it is colder than 16 degrees, humans lived in this period at temperatures that were often below zero. Hunting for mammoths and saber-toothed tigers, man has lived through the ice age and we have become better than ever!
Solar flare
In 1859 the earth was hit by a huge solar flare. The sun emitted an enormous amount of energy and radiation. In Australia, the phenomenon was noted as clear white light. Although this did not have much effect at the time of this event, it would cause a terrible disaster today. All electrical equipment would have become useless and humans would have been left to themself without communication, the internet or light.
In the electricity-free world of 1859, this obviously had little effect. The scenario, however, almost repeated itself in 2012. Fortunately, the earth was missed by the solar flare, but if it had taken place 6 minutes earlier, this catastrophe would have become a reality and selfies would have permanently become a thing of the past.
Shaanxi earthquake
In 1556 a huge earthquake occurred in the northern province of China. The earthquake is estimated at 7.9 on the Richter scale and is one of the largest in human history. As a comparison: this is ten times more intense than the recently devastating earthquake in Haiti. The impact of the earthquake was felt throughout China and more than 830,000 people died from this catastrophe. Compared with the numbers of the aforementioned plague, this does not seem extremely high, but at that time it was 60% of the entire population of China. Translated to today, these are 780 million people who were removed from the face of the earth in an instance. In our opinion, this also qualifies for one of the greatest disasters humanity has ever experienced.
