Top 05 worst pandemics ever in history
The Third Pandemic was the third major outbreak of bubonic plague after the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. It began in China in the 1850s and eventually spread to all six inhabited continents before declining in the 1950s. Despite modern advances in medicine, the Third Pandemic still killed 12 million people in China and India, and although it is now considered inactive, a number of isolated cases of the disease were discovered in the western United States in 1995.
4. Smallpox
Although it has since been successfully eradicated, the pox devastated the Americas when European settlers first introduced it in the 15th century. Of all the diseases introduced to the New World, smallpox was the most dangerous, killing millions of indigenous peoples in the United States and Central America. Smallpox destroyed the Aztec and Inca civilizations and is generally considered a major factor in their conquest by the Spanish. The disease was equally dangerous in Europe, where it was estimated to have killed 60 million people in the 18th century alone.
3. Plague of Justinian
Generally regarded as one of the first pandemics in historical records, the Plague of Justinian was a particularly dangerous disease that struck the Byzantine Empire in 541 AD. Although exact numbers are uncertain, cholera is estimated to have killed 100 million people worldwide. Apart from this staggering death rate, the political effects of Justinian's plague were far-reaching, as its destruction prevented the Byzantine Empire from spreading eastward into Italy, thereby significantly altering the course of European history.
2. Spanish flu
The Spanish flu of 1918, which followed the devastation of World War I, is considered one of the worst pandemics in history. A worldwide phenomenon, it is estimated that one-third of the world's population is infected, killing 100 million people as a result. Since then, the virus, identified as the H1N1 strain, would emerge in waves and disappear from communities as often as it arrived. Fearful of mass uproar, governments did their best to play down the severity of the flu, and due to wartime censorship, its far-reaching effects were not fully realized until years later. It was only during World War I that Spain, a neutral country, allowed comprehensive news coverage of the pandemic, so it eventually became known as the Spanish flu.
1. Bubonic Plague (Black Death)
Perhaps the most famous pandemic in history, the Black Death was a massive plague epidemic that ravaged Europe for most of the 1300s. Characterized by the appearance of oozing and bleeding sores and high fever, the plague is estimated to have killed 75-200 million people in the 14th century alone, and recent studies have wiped out 45-50% of the entire population of Europe. The plague would be a constant threat for the next hundred years, periodically resurfacing and killing thousands, the last major outbreak occurring in London in the 1600s.
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