The Day Humanity Almost Vanished 70,000 Years Ago | History for Sleep

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The Day Humanity Almost Vanished - 70,000 Years Ago | History for
Sleep





The Day Earth Went Silent — 70,000 years ago the Toba
supervolcano erupted and plunged the planet into a volcanic
winter that almost erased humanity. Dive into the Toba eruption,
the six years of darkness, and the genetic bottleneck written in
our DNA.





In this episode of Sleepy Time History, we trace early humans
living in paradise, the monster that awakened, and how tiny bands
of survivors kept our species alive. Learn the science behind the
volcanic winter, the DNA evidence for a prehistoric bottleneck,
and the epic recovery from a few thousand to billions.





Curious how your genes remember a near-extinction? Want a calm,
gripping retelling of one of history’s most dramatic events? This
video is history for sleep, science for the curious, and a
reminder: we are all survivors.





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into the past and other unbelievable stories from human history.





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00:00 Introduction: The Day Earth Went Silent


07:57 The World Before the Catastrophe: Early Humans in Paradise


26:27 The Monster Awakens: Toba Supervolcano Erupts


42:42 The Volcanic Winter: Six Years of Darkness


1:03:39 The Genetic Bottleneck: Evidence Written in Our DNA


1:23:29 The Survivors: How Humanity Refused to Die


1:45:21 The Aftermath: From 10,000 to 8 Billion


2:05:35 Conclusion: We Are All Survivors





Sources:


• 1998 — Stanley H. Ambrose — Late Pleistocene human population
bottlenecks, volcanic winter, and differentiation of modern
humans


• 2009 — Michael R. Rampino & Stephen Self — Volcanic winter
and accelerated glaciation following the Toba super-eruption


• 2012 — Christine S. Lane et al. — Ash from the Toba
supereruption in Lake Malawi shows no volcanic winter in East
Africa at 75 ka


• 2010 — John Hawks et al. — Recent acceleration of human
adaptive evolution


• 2014 — David Reich — Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient
DNA and the New Science of the Human Past