When studying ancient history, it's sometimes surprising humanity ever made it to the 20th century. Ancient civilizations were repeatedly hit by disasters, both natural and man-made, the likes of which modern civilization has rarely seen. It seems that when nature was trying to wipe us off the face of the map, we were also busy doing it to each other. Here are 7 of the worst disasters to shake the ancient world.

​1.    The Chicxulub Crater: An Asteroid and a Mass Extinction Event
Let’s start with a disaster that predates human civilization by a wide margin, but can confidently be called the greatest natural disaster to have ever shaken the world: the asteroid impact that changed everything.

The Chicxulub crater can be found on Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula . Measuring in at 111 miles (180 kilometers) wide and 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) deep, this massive crater marks an asteroid impact from around 66 million years ago.

It’s believed that the asteroid was around 6 miles (10 kilometers) in diameter. This may not sound that large, but the speed at which it was traveling meant when it collided with the Earth, it did so with the power of over a billion atomic bombs. Shockwaves were felt around the globe, and winds of up to 600 miles per hour (965 kilometers per hour) scoured the ground surrounding the impact bare.

Millions of tons of ash, gases, and debris choked the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and leading to massive global cooling. When this debris began to fall to Earth, it was still so hot that it caused massive wildfires wherever it landed.
This all caused an extinction-level event that wiped out up to 75% of all life on Earth during the Cretaceous Period . If this sounds familiar, it is because this is the asteroid strike widely believed to be responsible for the death of dinosaurs. So, really, this is perhaps one we should be grateful for!

By Zach Royer

Seventy million years ago, the earth was inhabited by giant reptiles: gigantic lizards, colossal saurains, who slithered, swam, flew. Their reign lasted one hundred million years - whereas, according to the most optimistic estimates, man has had barely six million years.

This means that these species of reptiles had in order to become adapted and to evolve, an infinitely longer time than man. Furthermore, it is impossible to pretend that they represented an evolutionary failure: any species that lasts a hundred million years must be considered to be fully adapted. Yet few species that were contemporaries of those reptiles survive -- for example, certain crabs, which have not changed in three hundred million years. In fact, in less than one million years the giant reptiles entirely disappeared.

How and Why?

We can scarcely maintain that it was because a change in climate; for even when the climate changes, the oceans hardly vary, and many of these reptiles lived in the oceans.

It is impossible to believe that a higher form of life was able to exterminate them. This would have required a considerable army, whose traces we would certainly have found.

One amusing hypothesis is that our ancestors, the mammals, might have fed on dinosaur eggs. But it is only that: an amusing hypothesis: the icthyosaurs deposited their eggs in the oceans, out of their adversaries' reach.

It has been said that the grasses changed, and that the new grasses were too tough for the big reptiles. A completely unlikely hypothesis: large numbers of vegetation types have survived, on which they could have fed perfectly well. The giant tortoises of the Galapagos Islands, the ones that interested Darwin so much, did not die of hunger.

One could say that species grow old, become senile, and die. But this is bad logic: the preservation of the genetic code prevents a species from dying out. And why haven't those species that are still living after several hundred millions of years, such as crabs and cockroaches, become senile too?

None of these hypotheses hold. But something happened. What then? An ingenious hypothesis has been outlined by two Soviet scientists, V. I. Krasovkii and I. S. Chklovski, both of whom are eminent astrophysicists -- especially the latter, who is the author of some extremely important works in astrophysics and radio astronomy. It was Chklovski, in fact, who studied synchotron radiation and showed that relatively rapid and extremely violent events can be produced at the center of galaxies as well as in space in general.

(AA) Youtuber MrMBB333 gives us a run down of today's weird and strange weather events including a giant lightning storm and two possible tornadoes in the Mid-west. Visit our WEATHER WATCH and SKY WATCH pages to follow weather and other anomalies in your area.

Have you ever looked up and spotted a long contrail extending across the sky? Have you ever  noticed that sometimes they disappear instantaneously or sometimes they spread out and create a cloud cover? Google the terms "Chemtrails" or "Geoengineering" and learn how many methods are used today to create or prevent certain weather patterns, with unknown consequence.

The document "Weather as a Force Multiplier - Owning the Weather by 2025" created for the United States Air Force by military officials outlines the use of weather for military applications: 

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(AA) In the wake of the recent string of solar flares, some Americans--particularly Gulf Coast residents--may be wondering whether there are places in the U.S. that are safe from such natural disasters. The short answer? No. The Midwest may not be vulnerable to hurricanes, but twisters drop in regularly. Major earthquakes don't tend to strike New England, but strong winds can peel the roof off a northeastern house and snowstorms can shut down cities.

"Every location in the country is exposed to one disaster or another," says Wendy Rose, spokeswoman for the Institute for Business & Home Safety, a Tampa, Fla.-based nonprofit insurance industry group that aims to reduce losses from natural catastrophes.

Still, some places are less susceptible than others to natural hazards. To get an idea where they might be, we partnered with Sperling's Best Places ( www.bestplaces.net), a data collection company based in Portland, Ore. Sperling's has compiled weather and disaster data for 331 metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S., and we used the information to discern the safest--and least safe--areas in which to live.