A lot can happen in one hundred years. Lots of bad, lots of good, but lots of change nevertheless. A couple of days ago a YouTube user, derDon1234, uploaded a video compiled of some of the most notable moments in the past hundred years and after watching I’m actually sincerely surprised that any of us are even still here. If the video is to be a glimpse of civilization in miniature for a small period of time on earth then its hard to believe that this wasn’t the worst one hundred years in history. Seriously, from what this video highlights, I don’t think there was ever a minute in the past century that wasn’t clouded with bomb smoke and deafened with the cry of millions being murdered.

There are a few good moments in humanity’s past highlighted here, such as the first moonwalk by the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 but, good lord, the sweetness of those memories are obliterated by the endless footage of death and destruction that seemed to infect every single moment of the one hundred year period. And sure, people will argue that significant moments were left out of this compilation (like the Dust Bowl in the United States during the 1930s or the political assassination of Chilean president Salvador Allende in 1973) but I guess you have to pick and choose your abject miseries.

It goes without saying that the Hans Zimmer soundtrack to the video doesn’t really help ease the dreadful intensity of the footage, either. At any rate, it’s a new year and lets all collectively exhale a deep breath that we even survived the past one hundred years and hope that the next hundred won’t be so incredibly devastating.