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Nov 15, 2021 · History’s Seven Deadliest Plagues. SARS-CoV-2 has officially claimed 5 million lives, but credible estimates place the pandemic’s true death toll closer to 17 million. Either count secures COVID-19’s position on our list of history’s deadliest plagues. A masquerade historical scene reconstruction. Plague doctor in medieval old town.
- The Plague at Athens
- Antonine Plague
- Plague of Justinian
- Leprosy
- The Black Death
- The Cocoliztli Epidemic
- Great Plague of London
- The Great Flu Epidemic
- The Asian Flu Pandemic
- HIV/AIDS Pandemic
The earliest recorded pandemic took place in the second year of the Peloponnesian War. Originating in sub-Saharan Africa, it erupted in Athens and would persist across Greece and the eastern Mediterranean. The plague was thought to be typhoid fever. Symptoms included fever, thirst, bloody throat and tongue, red skins and legions. According to Thucy...
The Antonine Plague, sometimes referred to as the Plague of Galen, claimed almost 2,000 deaths per day in Rome. The total death toll was estimated to be around 5 million. Thought to have been smallpox or measles, it erupted at the height of Roman power throughout the Mediterranean world, and affected Asia Minor, Egypt, Greece and Italy. It was thou...
The Plague of Justinian affected the Byzantine Eastern Roman Empire, especially its capital Constantinople as well as the Sasanian Empire and port cities around the Mediterranean Sea. The plague – named after the emperor Justinian I – is regarded as the first recorded incident of the bubonic plague. It was also one of the worst outbreaks of plague ...
Although it had existed for centuries, leprosy grew into a pandemic in Europe in the Middle Ages. Also known as Hansen’s disease, leprosy is due to a chronic infection of the bacterium Mycobacterium leprae. Leprosy causes skin lesions that can permanently damage the skin, nerves, eyes and limbs. In its extreme form the disease can cause loss of fin...
The Black Death, also known as the Pestilence or the Great Plague, was a devastating bubonic plague that struck Europe and Asia in the 14th century. It is estimated to have killed between 30 to 60 percent of Europe’s population, and an estimated 75 to 200 million people in Eurasia. The epidemic was thought to have originated in the dry plains of Ce...
The cocoliztli epidemic refers to the millions of deaths that took place in the 16th century in the territory of New Spain, in present-day Mexico. Cocoliztli, meaning “pest”, in Nahhuatl, was actually a series of mysterious diseases that decimated the native Mesoamerican population after the Spanish conquest. It had a devastating effect on the area...
The Great Plague was the last major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England. It was also theworst outbreak of plague since the Black Death. The earliest cases occurred in a parish called St Giles-in-the-Fields. The death count began to rise rapidly during the hot summer months and peaked in September, when 7,165 Londoners died in one wee...
The 1918 influenza pandemic, also known as Spanish flu, has been recorded as the most devastating epidemic in history. It infected 500 million people around the world, including people on remote Pacific Islands and in the Arctic. The death toll was anywhere from 50 million to 100 million. Approximately 25 million of those deaths came in the first 2...
The Asian Flu Pandemic was an outbreak of avian influenza that originated in China in 1956 and spread worldwide. It was the second major influenza pandemic of the 20th century. The outbreak was caused by a virus known as influenza A subtype H2N2, believed to have originated from strains of avian influenza from wild ducks and a pre-existing human st...
The human immunodeficiency virus, or HIV, is a virus that attacks the immune system, and is transmitted through bodily fluids, historically most often through unprotected sex, birth, and the sharing of needles. Over time, HIV can destroy so many CD4 cells that the individual will develop the most severe form of an HIV infection: acquired immunodefi...
Dec 7, 2023 · The Black Death. The Black Death (1346–1353 CE) – one of the earliest pandemics with a methodically estimated death toll – killed around 50–60% of Europe’s population, approximately 50 million people, in just 6 years.3. Researchers have established that many people also died elsewhere – as large outbreaks are also recognizable in ...
- Dave Roos
- Plague of Justinian—No One Left to Die. Yersinia pestis, formerly pasteurella pestis, was the bacteria responsible for the plague. Here it's seen under optical microscopy X 1000.
- Black Death—The Invention of Quarantine. The people of Tournai bury victims of the Black Death circa 1353. The plague never really went away, and when it returned 800 years later, it killed with reckless abandon.
- The Great Plague of London—Sealing Up the Sick. Scenes in the streets of London during the Great Plague of 1665. London never really caught a break after the Black Death.
- Smallpox—A European Disease Ravages the New World. Smallpox was endemic to Europe, Asia and Arabia for centuries, a persistent menace that killed three out of ten people it infected and left the rest with pockmarked scars.
Ongoing epidemics and pandemics are in boldface. For a given epidemic or pandemic, the average of its estimated death toll range is used for ranking. If the death toll averages of two or more epidemics or pandemics are equal, then the smaller the range, the higher the rank. For the historical records of major changes in the world population, see world population. [3] [4]
EventYearsLocationDisease1350 BC plague of Megiddoc. 1350 BCMegiddo, land of CanaanAmarna letters EA 244, Biridiya, mayor of ...Hittite Plague /"Hand of Nergal"c. 1330 BCNear East, Hittite Empire, Alashiya, ...Unknown, possibly Tularemia. Mentioned in ...430–426 BCGreece, Libya, Egypt, EthiopiaUnknown, possibly typhus, typhoid fever ...412 BCGreece ( Northern Greece, Roman Republic ...Unknown, possibly influenzaApr 7, 2020 · Deaths: 200,000 • Cause: H1N1. A crane lifts culled pigs into a container on a farm where 80 pigs died of swine fever on March 4, 2006 in Haltern, Germany. (VOLKER HARTMANN/DDP/AFP via Getty ...
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Jan 31, 2023 · Here are 21 of the worst epidemics and pandemics in history, dating from prehistoric to modern times. Related:Spanish Flu: The deadliest pandemic in history. 1. Prehistoric epidemic: Circa 3000 B ...
