The death toll from it has yet to reach 100, but an outbreak of swine flu has gotten huge amounts of attention in the media in recent weeks. Even though regular flu viruses have killed thousands in that time, swine flu is all over the news because of worry that it could escalate into a pandemic, which is an outbreak of infectious disease across a large geographical area. There are countless instances of mass pandemics in history, and some have even been powerful enough to topple governments and nearly wipe out whole civilizations. Chances are that swine flu will run its course and soon be forgotten, but here are 10 examples of diseases that have made a huge mark on history.
6. The 7 Cholera Pandemics
One of the most consistently dangerous diseases in history, cholera and its so-called “seven pandemics” killed millions between 1816 and the early 1960s. Generally transmitted through contaminated food or drinking water, the disease first sprang up in India, where it is said to have killed as many as 40 million between 1817 and 1860. It would soon spread to Western Europe and the United States, where it killed more than a hundred thousand people in the mid-1800s. Since then, there have been periodic outbreaks of cholera, but advances in medicine have made it a much less deadly disease. While it once had a mortality rate of 50 percent or more, when treated cholera is now life threatening only in the most rare of cases.
5. The Third Pandemic
The Third Pandemic was the third major outbreak of the bubonic plague, following the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death. It started in China in the 1850s, and would eventually spread to all six inhabited continents before tapering off sometime in the 1950s. Despite modern breakthroughs in medicine, the Third Pandemic still killed as many as 12 million people in China and India, and though it is now considered inactive, as recently as 1995 a number of isolated cases of the disease were discovered in the western United States.
4. Smallpox
Although it has since been successfully eradicated, smallpox devastated the Americas when European settlers first introduced it in the 15th century. Of all the diseases brought to the new world, smallpox was the most virulent, and it is credited with the deaths of millions of native peoples in the United States and Central America. Smallpox decimated the Aztec and Incan civilizations and is generally considered to be a major factor in their eventual conquering by the Spanish. The disease was equally dangerous back in Europe, where it is estimated to have killed 60 million people in just the 18th century alone.
3. The Plague of Justinian
Generally regarded as one of the first pandemics in the historical record, The Plague of Justinian was a particularly virulent disease that broke out in the Byzantine Empire around 541 AD. Although the exact numbers are uncertain, the plague is estimated to have caused the deaths of 100 million people worldwide–5,000 a day at its peak–and it is regarded to have killed at least one in four people in the eastern Mediterranean region. Beyond this staggering mortality rate, the political effects of the Plague of Justinian were far-reaching, as its devastation prevented the Byzantine Empire from being able to spread eastward into Italy and thus significantly changed the course of European history.
2. The Spanish Flu
Arriving on the heels of the devastation of World War I, the Spanish Flu of 1918 is widely considered to be one of the most vicious pandemics in history. A worldwide phenomenon, it is estimated to have infected one third of the world’s entire population, and eventually killed as many as 100 million people. The virus, which has since been identified as a strain of H1N1, would surface in waves, frequently disappearing in communities as quickly as it arrived. Fearing a massive uproar, governments did their best to downplay the severity of the flu, and because of wartime censorship, its far-reaching effects were not fully realized until years later. Only Spain, a neutral country during WWI, allowed comprehensive news reporting on the pandemic, which is why it eventually became known as the Spanish Flu.
1. The Bubonic Plague (The Black Death)
Perhaps the most well known pandemic in history, the Black Death was a massive outbreak of bubonic plague that ravaged Europe through most of the 1300s. Characterized by the appearance of oozing and bleeding sores on the body and a high fever, the plague is estimated to have killed anywhere from 75 to 200 million people in the 14th century alone, with recent research concluding that 45-50% of the entire population of Europe was wiped out. The Plague would be a constant threat for the next hundred years, periodically resurfacing and killing thousands, with the last major outbreak occurring in London in the 1600s.
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