Name: 10 Scariest Moments in Recent World History
Uploaded: 2025-06-17T17:05:42.000Z
Duration: 16 min 12 s
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Todd and his family are preparing for the downside of Y2K should it come to pass.

Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're looking at moments from the mid-20th century and beyond that made the world stand still.

Adverbs of manner

We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the course of worldwide nuclear war.

Good evening, here's what's happening tonight.

The Soviets are saying little, but what is known is cause for concern.

A nuclear accident has occurred at a Soviet atomic plant in the Ukraine.

It is believed serious, but details of damage, injuries, or casualties are few so far.

Eyewitness News reporter Liz Gonzalez has more on this accident, what is thought to be the first such accident the Soviets have ever made public.

The explosion of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant's number four reactor remains, 40 years after it happened, the most devastating nuclear disaster of all time, as well as the costliest of any kind.

Brought on by an ill-advised reactor cooling test, at least 30 deaths have been attributed to the events at Chernobyl, whether directly or by acute radiation sickness after the fact.

The Soviets may have been fairly quick to acknowledge the accident because evidence in the form of mild nuclear radiation had already reached beyond the Soviet borders to Scandinavia.

The first word that something was seriously wrong came from this power plant in eastern Sweden, where workers coming on the job registered abnormally high levels of radiation on their bodies.

Beyond its tragic significance, which led to the abandonment of the town of Pripyat, the disaster led to widespread distrust of the Soviet government, amid backlash for its efforts to cover it up.

Chernobyl still looms large in the public imagination for the destruction it wrought, and as a reminder of the fearsome power of nuclear energy.

Well, it was just four hours ago when Soviet viewers were watching their evening news bulletin, and the announcer revealed that the accident had taken place.

The official news agency TASS later added that aid was being given to those affected.

The accident was at Chernobyl, a town of around 50,000 people.

Breaking news tonight, a Malaysia Airlines flight with 239 people on board, including four Americans, has gone missing.

At this hour, a desperate search is underway for MH Flight 370, which departed Kuala Lumpur at 12.41 a.m. local time and was due to land in Beijing at 6.30 a.m. 38 minutes after takeoff from Kuala Lumpur International Airport, the crew of this 777-200ER made what they didn't yet know would be their final transmission to the outside world.

Flight 370 never arrived at its destination in Beijing, and the scariest part is that literally no one knows for sure where it ended up.

CBS News Tony Aiello is here with the latest developments.

Mary, the United States and 12 other countries are aiding in this search, with 57 ships and 48 aircraft scouring Southeast Asia for any sign of the missing plane.

CBS News has learned the disappearance of Flight MH370 increasingly looks like a deliberate act.

Described as the greatest aviation mystery of all time, the disappearance of Flight 370 is not only terrifying as a result of the unanswered questions it raises, but also heartbreaking for the families of those who were never seen again.

Even more chilling, no one is even quite sure as to why it happened.

Two switches were pulled in that cockpit.

The French president has declared a state of emergency and has sealed the country's borders.

But Lester, we're hearing reports of shooters moving through that concert hall where the hostages were apparently taken, killing people one by one.

People are taking to social media to say someone please help us.

In 2015, France as a nation had maintained a heightened focus on security after a series of coordinated terrorist attacks on the Ile-de-France administrative region in January.

However, they were woefully underprepared for what was next to come.

My dear compatriots, at the moment that I speak to you, terrorist attacks of an unprecedented level are happening in the Paris area.

We 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.

On Friday, November 13th, three separate groups of militants associated with the Islamic State terror cell carried out a series of attacks.

One such attack, which took place at an Eagles of Death medal concert at the Bataclan, received massive international media coverage.

That was for the fact that it resulted in the most casualties of any of the three attacks, with 90 deaths.

Altogether, 130 people were killed and 416 injured.

What 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 hours, to donate blood.

It's one way, they've said, that helps them feel like they can keep the fear at bay.

They want to feel like they're doing something to help.

Many people say that they feel helpless and afraid.

The signs were everywhere, but now it's official.

The research group that makes that determination made it today and said the recession actually started a year ago.

The Dow plunged nearly 680 points today, or 7.7%.

While some countries around the world were spared the worst of it, the late 2000s economic crisis wreaked significant havoc on nations thought to be untouchable.

Ostensibly the result of the bursting of the United States housing bubble and the devaluation of mortgage-backed securities, the Great Recession was described as the biggest financial nightmare since the Great Depression nearly 100 years earlier.

Although the crisis was brought to a close in 2009, its ripple effects, including unemployment, health, and politics can still be felt today.

These ripples remind us of the volatility and relative instability of the systems and institutions we trust implicitly.

Folks over 55 have not recovered from the recession.

In fact, their unemployment rate has doubled since 2007.

Half the folks at or near retirement age think they won't have enough to retire.

Half of seniors experiencing money trouble have put off medical or dental care or stopped taking their medications.

The massacres that have claimed up to 200,000 lives in Rwanda did not begin as a spontaneous outpouring of tribal rage, but rather as a systematic campaign of killing directed by political leaders and backed by the military.

Over the course of just three months, from April to July of 1994, a coalition of extremist Hutu militia groups in the East African nation of Rwanda killed as many as an estimated 800,000 Tutsis.

This was in addition to 10,000 members of the Twa peoples, and up to 500,000 Tutsi women were sexually assaulted by Hutu militants.

The commander of the small United Nations detachment in Rwanda conceded today that his efforts to broker a ceasefire in the civil war there have shown no signs of success.

He predicted more fighting and more massacres.

This was the Canadian general, Romeo Dallaire, who was deeply affected by his inability to stop this crisis going on.

The most infamous moment of the larger Rwandan civil war, which began in 1990 before ending in July 1994.

The deadly chaos was spurred on by the assassination of Rwandan President Juvenal Haberarimana.

While the mass killings ceased, the conflict instead morphed into the First Congo War in 1996.

There was, I think, just a collective willingness back in the United States, and in all the world capitals, to put your heads in the sand.

I mean, this was only six months after we had lost a huge number of army rangers during the Black Hawk Down incident in Somalia.

And I think there was no appetite in Washington at that time to engage ourselves in another African tribal war.

After 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, announcing what Putin called the start of a military special operation, in his words, to demilitarize Ukraine.

That Russia would bring in troops, he told Ukrainian troops, to lay down arms and go home.

To be totally clear, it's worth noting that 2022 didn't mark the beginning of Russia's annex to neighboring Ukraine.

That began in 2014, kicking off an ongoing war effort.

Having said that, 2022 marked a significant escalation in the conflict.

Yeah, the distinct sound of explosions on the horizon here in Kyiv, we've heard at least four what appear to be strikes lighting up the night sky just 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.

On February 24th, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the beginning of a special military operation, which was largely interpreted by the international community as a euphemism for an all-out invasion.

Amidst hundreds of thousands of civilian and military deaths, the Russia-Ukraine war has stoked global fears of what could happen if Putin achieves his goals.

So the two major goals for Vladimir Putin is one, to kind of keep Ukraine close to Russia, and number two is to keep Ukraine away from the West.

When it comes to ringing in the millennium, home is where the party is, despite predictions a year ago that most revelers would celebrate big and travel far.

Fears of the Y2K bug are keeping many people grounded, and most say they'll settle for being close to home with family and friends.

The computer chip is ruling the evening, absolutely.

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10 Scariest Moments in Recent World History

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