5. Great Chinese Famine
Death Toll Estimate: 43 Million
Another century later and we’re now in a Communist-led China. The period 1958 to 1961 is also know as ‘the great leap forward’ – and it’s a sombre lesson in what can happen when a government attempts to change a country too quickly.
Although droughts and poor weather conditions led to the famine, the disaster can quite easily be seen as a consequence of the government’s attempts to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern communist society. Chinese peasants describe this period as the ‘three bitter years’, which is something of an understatement. Several decades later the Chinese economy became the largest in the world – but at quite a price.
4. Mongol Conquests
Death Toll Estimate: 60 Million
If there is one man who could be said to have more blood on his hands than anyone else in history, it is Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of Khan (and successors after his death), the Mongol empire grew into the largest land empire the world has ever seen – at its peak covering 16% of the Earth. The Mongol army swept across Asia, killing its rivals with great ferocity for the best part of two centuries. The death toll would certainly have been much higher if the Mongols had continued to progress west and into Europe.
Aside from all the killing, it wasn’t all bad under Mongol rule – with religious tolerance given to most faiths, as well as tax breaks for the poor.
3. World War 1
Death Toll Estimate: 65 Million
Although other wars had come close quite a few times, this was the first truly global war. The causes of the ‘great war’ are varied and rather complicated, but suffice it to say that in 1914 when the various European empires began to get too big for each other, they decided to form two vast alliances and fight it out for dominance.
Europe became divided, and dragged the rest of the world into its rapidly widening sinkhole. Outdated warfare tactics were deadly to the soldiers involved: these young men would often be ordered to walk very slowly towards the opponent’s machine-gun fire. When the war finished in 1918, Europe and the world began to count the cost of so many lost lives. Most agreed that this madness could never happen again…
2. World War 2
Death Toll Estimate: 72 Million
Having taken a break from fighting for a few years, ‘total war’ broke out again in 1939. The two teams divided again into vast forces, and called themselves the Allies and the Axis. During the short break before the war, each country had decided to build some new killing machines – taking to the skies and to the sea, and developing more efficient land-based vehicles as well as automatic weapons their soldiers could now carry. And as if this wasn’t enough, a certain country decided to build a very big bomb. The Allies eventually ‘won’ the war, though 85% of the death toll came from their side, with the Soviet Union and China seeing the greatest casualties. The majority of deaths also came outside of the combat zone, and can therefore be attributed to war crimes.
1. European Colonization of the Americas
Death Toll Estimate: 100 Million
When Christopher Columbus, John Cabot and other explorers in the 15th century found a new continent, it must’ve seemed like the dawn of a new age. Here was a new paradise that adventurous Europeans could call their new home. There was, however, one problem: this land already had an indigenous population.
Over the following centuries, the seafaring Europeans brought vast death tolls to what is now referred to as North and South America. Although war and invasion can account for a hefty chunk of these casualties, it was the natives’ lack of immunity to European diseases that caused the most deaths. Some estimates state that 80% of the Native American population died as a result of contact with Europeans.
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