So far in one game I have had three "global events" and I have to say they are pretty cool!   My issue is I got the last one (with auto-turn on) while I was clicking on a city, which meant that I ended up dismissing the screen that told me what the event was.

Considering how cool these screens are (and how subtle some of the effects are) it seems a crime that there's no way to view the event.  There should be a way, like the quest log, to see what global events have happened and open the appropriate flavor text screen.