There have been other points of history that have almost ended the world. These moments are not always caused by humanity, but rather by mother nature. We know about asteroids, and we know about natural disasters, but there is one culprit that has been known to cause a lot of disruptions on earth. The sun. For the past 4.6 billion years our sun has been releasing plasma in a process called a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME). 

May 23, 1967

In the early morning of May 23, 1967, all U.S military equipment ceased to function. A panic ensued as nearby technicians claimed that the malfunction was intentional jamming by the Soviet Union. Bombers were scrambled and the government went into panic. However, a science division studying the sun claimed that a solar storm or a Coronal Mass Ejection was responsible for the malfunction. This same science division was formed almost ten years prior to the event. Without this division, the world would most likely have plunged into total nuclear war.

July 23, 2012

During 2012, there was mass speculation that the world will end on December 12th. We know now that has never happened, however, there was an end of the world scenario a few months prior. Scientists noticed a brewing solar storm, and although this usually won’t cause any alarm, this storm, however, would be a large and powerful storm that could strike the planet. 

When the Coronal Mass Ejection occurred, it tore right through Earth’s orbit. Luckily Earth was not near the ejection at the moment. In fact, if the storm did not happen for another nine hours, Earth would have definitely been hit. This would have caused all cultural progress to come to a grinding halt. Power outages would happen all over the world, technology would render useless, and the world would be thrown into a long period of darkness. It would not be the end of the world, but it would most definitely have felt like it.