The worst day in Earth’s history happened in the spring. About 66 million years ago, as flowers were beginning to bloom and dinosaurs were courting, an immense asteroid struck the planet and sparked the world’s Fifth Mass Extinction. An intense heat pulse roasted a great deal of the planet’s surface, followed by years of impact winter that decimated the dinosaurs and other forms of ancient life. And yet life continued and even thrived in the aftermath, marking the beginnings of the world as we know it today.

Author and paleontologist Riley Black will walk you through what happened in the second, the hour, the day, the week, the month, and million years after impact and how one of life’s greatest tragedies set the stage for a story of incredible resilience.