Top 20 Worst Epidemics in History
Top 20 Worst Epidemics in History
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Humanity is nothing if not resilient. Need proof? Just consider everything we’ve survived so far! Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we’ll be counting down our picks for the Top 20 Worst Epidemics in History. For this list, we’ll be looking at the deadliest and most significant outbreaks of contagious disease throughout human history.
#20: 2009 Flu Pandemic (H1N1)
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Though people tend to forget now that it’s largely in the rearview mirror, H1N1 caused major panic in 2009. Also known as the swine flu, it was actually a hybrid of a human flu virus, paired with those of birds, and two different pig flus. This unholy reassortment went on to infect somewhere between 700 million and 1.4 billion. Thankfully, it’s lethality rate was relatively low compared to other epidemics on our list today, but nonetheless, because of how widespread it became, H1N1 still went on to claim hundreds of thousands of lives - some estimate as many as 575,000. Though few people realize it, H1N1 still circulates; it’s become one of the many strains that make up the flu season.
#19: Plague of Sheroe (627 - 628)
When talking about epidemics dating back more than a millennium, the figures get murky. So while we can’t say with certainty exactly how many lives were claimed by the Plague of Sheroe, we can talk about its lethality. When it washed over the western Sasanian Empire, it’s said to have killed roughly 50% of the population. Among the dead was Kavad II Sheroe, the ruler of the Sasanian Empire - and so the plague was named after him, becoming a major part of his rather unflattering legacy. Ironically, the plague was brought home to Sheroe by his troops who were carrying out campaigns abroad. An indirect result of the Sasanian Empire’s attempts to expand, the Plague of Sheroe actually played a crucial role in its fall.
#18: Italian Plague of 1629 - 1631
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When discussing the Bubonic Plague, we typically think of that one major outbreak - which we’ll be getting to later. But what many people don’t know is that this deadly bacteria, Yersinia pestis, has been tormenting humanity for centuries. In fact, there was an outbreak as recently as 1994! Among the most notable such epidemics from history is the one that struck Italy in the early 17th century. Hitting Central and Northern Italy hardest, it’s thought to have claimed anywhere between 280,000 to 1 million lives. Milan was among the cities hit hardest; it’s estimated that 46% of its population fell to the disease. As such, it’s also often referred to as the Great Plague of Milan.
#17: Sixth Cholera Pandemic (1899 - 1923)
Like the Bubonic Plague, cholera is one of those infections that just refuses to quit. Beginning in 1899, the Sixth Cholera Pandemic - yes, you heard that right, sixth - first broke out in India before spreading across North Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. Russia was among the nations hit hardest with the death toll reaching an estimated 500,000 victims. Western Europe was largely unaffected, but it did spread - eventually reaching the United States in 1910, where a minor outbreak occurred - though the fatalities were low. Unfortunately, the Philippines and India weren’t so lucky, losing an estimated 200,000 and 800,000 people respectively. A Seventh Cholera Pandemic has since occurred, but mortality rates were eventually curbed thanks to modern medicine and better planning.
#16: Japanese Smallpox Epidemic (735 - 737)
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Like the Plague of Seroe, this epidemic’s death toll is hard to quantify due to the limited data available. But again, like with the Sasanian Empire, we do have an estimate of its lethality. In the case of this particular smallpox epidemic, it would appear that 1 in every 3 people living in Japan at the time died. As more recent outbreaks have taught us, increased global mobility goes hand in hand with outbreaks, and this particularly devastating pandemic was the result of Japan establishing greater back and forth with the Asian mainland. Though it claimed lives at all levels of society, farming communities were hit especially hard. As a result, the government had to encourage a redistribution of the population to help agricultural recovery.
#15: The Hong Kong Flu (1968)
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This outbreak began in Hong Kong - thus the name - but it quickly spread across the world. An H3N2 type influenza, the 1968 flu pandemic first made its way throughout Southeast Asia, with major outbreaks occurring in Vietnam and the Philippines. Before the year was out, it had jumped to Australia, the United States, and various places in Europe. By 1969, Japan and various countries in both South America and Africa were also reporting cases. These two years made up the peak of this particular pandemic, but it did continue to circulate into the early ‘70s. By the time it had run its course, the 1968 flu pandemic had killed 100,000 people in the U.S. and one million people globally.
#14: Third Cholera Pandemic (1852 - 1860)
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The unlucky victims of this disease suffered through hellish final days, with diarrhea, vomiting and resulting dehydration being the main symptoms. With the most deaths of any 19th-century epidemic, the third cholera pandemic began in India and spread across Asia, Europe, North America and Africa to countries like Russia, where over one million people died. However, it took an outbreak of this severity for the cause for cholera to be found: in 1854, British doctor John Snow discovered that tainted water was to blame, and it was this breakthrough that eventually allowed officials to get control of the cholera pandemic.
#13: 1889 Flu Pandemic
Flu season might be a part of our regular lives, but it just takes one particularly contagious and/or lethal strain to make us really appreciate how serious a threat an influenza can pose. This epidemic initially ran its course over the span of two calendar years (1889-1890), but reared its ugly head again in subsequent flu seasons for the next half-decade or so. Thanks to the railroad systems across Europe and transatlantic shipping and travel, the epidemic became a pandemic, spreading to much of the world and claiming 1 million lives. Because of the limitations of scientific research at the time, we’re not sure which specific subtype of influenza it was, but the leading theory is H3N8 - best known today as “dog flu”.
#12: The Great Encephalitis Lethargica Pandemic (1915 - 1926)
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Also known simply as the sleeping sickness, this is a unique form of encephalitis. And more than simply making people feel sleepy, this unnerving condition leaves victims in what has been described as a “zombie-like” state. The encephalitis affects the brain and, in addition to a number of flu-like symptoms including fever and sore throat, it also results in decreased mental and physical responsiveness. In some cases, people become almost completely devoid of activity, including speech, drawing comparisons to living statues. Between 1915 and 1926, it’s thought to have affected roughly 5 million people. The disease claimed the lives of approximately 1.5 million, while the vast majority of survivors went on to experience various debilitating health issues.
#11: 1772 Persian Plague
The Bubonic Plague strikes again! One of the most deadly such outbreaks in human history, the Persian plague epidemic of 1772 claimed approximately 2 million lives. At its peak, the epidemic - which originated in the city of Baghdad - brought life in the Persian Empire to a screeching halt, with thousands of people dying day after day. It also spread to Bombay in India. Thankfully, quarantine measures put in place by the Persian Empire proved effective, and the situation came under control in 1773. Unfortunately, this approach proved too little too late for the city of Basra, which lost 250,000 residents before the plague came to an end.
#10: Asian Flu Pandemic of 1957 (1956 - 1958)
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Though it can be confirmed that this outbreak of the influenza-A virus started in China, the exact origin of the virus is contested, with one popular theory suggesting that a mutation in wild ducks joined together with a typical human strain to create the new disease. One of three flu pandemics during the 20th-century, this one was the least deadly, with estimated global death figures ranging between 1-4 million. And that’s likely due to the fact that a vaccine was created in 1957 that helped stem the rash of infections from this avian flu.
#9: World War I Typhus Epidemic (1918 - 1922)
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Taking place during a time of incredible strife, this typhus outbreak was another devastating result of WWI. A disease caused by bacteria, whose symptoms include severe back pain and delirium, this particular outbreak originated with lice. It was for this reason delousing stations for the soldiers had been set up on the Western Front, which helped keep those troops healthy. However, the Eastern Front was not so lucky: by the time of its peak, between 25-30 million cases were reported across Soviet regions, with three million Russians and even more Poles and Romanians dying from infection.
#8: 1520 Smallpox Epidemic
Colonization of the Americas was devastating for the pre-Columbian civilizations in a number of ways. But the most unexpected and hardest to combat was the influx of new diseases. It wouldn’t be the last epidemic to ravage the Aztec Empire, but smallpox laid the foundation of its destruction when the Spanish conquistadors brought the disease around 1520. Then-unknown in the new world, smallpox spread like wildfire due to the lack of local immunities. Tenochtitlan, the largest pre-Columbian city, was hit especially hard - even its leader, the newly crowned Cuitláhuac, fell to the illness. This biological warfare, though likely unintentional, played a major role in Tenochtitlan’s fall to infamous conquistador Hernán Cortés. It’s estimated that this epidemic ultimately claimed between 5 and 8 million lives.
#7: Antonine Plague (165 - 180)
The earliest pandemic on this list, this scourge came to the Roman Empire by way of soldiers returning from fighting in Western Asia; however, what form it took is up for debate, with some thinking smallpox or measles were to blame. Though it wasn’t as deadly as Justinian, with only 2,000 dying in Rome per day at its pinnacle and likely 5 million succumbing to the disease in total, the fact that it likely claimed the lives of two Roman emperors – Lucius Verus and Marcus Aurelius Antoninus – served to plunge the land into fear and chaos, and likely changed the course of history.
#6: Third Plague Pandemic (1855 - 1959)
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The third recorded iteration of the bubonic plague, after the Plague of Justinian and the Black Death, this plague ravaged the world for over a century. Beginning with diseased rodents in China’s Yunnan province in the 1850s and spreading to all populated areas of the globe thanks to the world’s newly established interconnection, this pandemic killed 12 million – and that was just in China and India. Finally ending in 1959 when death rates from the disease dropped to roughly 200 according to the World Health Organization, this third plague pandemic allowed doctors and scientists to study the infection and test new treatments. Fortunately, that helped stave off another coming of the plague.
#5: Cocoliztli (1545 - 1548 & 1576 - 1578)
This disease is categorized in a group of ailments called Viral Hemorrhagic Fever, a family of illnesses that continues to attack humanity with viruses like Ebola. Affecting the Aztecs living in the region that would become Mexico twice in less than half a century, Cocoliztli decimated the population, infecting a group that was already reeling from other diseases brought to their shores by Spanish conquerors and causing their numbers to dwindle by millions in less than a century. With symptoms that included a black tongue, dysentery, severe abdominal pain and bleeding from your nose, eyes and mouth, this Ebola-like epidemic annihilated what was once a thriving civilization.
#4: HIV / AIDS (1981-)
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Theorized to have spread from primates to humans sometime in the 20th-century, there was a case of an HIV-infected human in the Congo in 1959. But it wasn’t until the early 1980s that the disease was detected and named in the United States and the epidemic known as AIDS truly began to spread and define the subsequent decade. Despite early ignorance that the disease was exclusive to homosexual males and intravenous drug users, AIDS attacked those who didn’t take precautions indiscriminately and without mercy. Fortunately, after over 30-years and over 36-million deaths, scientists have been making headway in terms of treatments and possible vaccines, although sub-Saharan Africa is still badly affected.
#3: Plague of Justinian (541 - 542)
A forebearer of a pandemic that will be featured later on this list, this plague is believed to have been brought to the Byzantine Empire, and Constantinople specifically, by infected rats traveling from Egypt on grain boats. An event that likely changed the course of European and Christian history, the Plague of Justinian left the Byzantine Empire short of healthy citizens who could act as laborers or militaries, meaning the Empire was severely weakened. With some suggesting that at its peak, the mortality rate of this plague took 5,000 lives each day; the first wave of this disease eradicated 40% of Constantinople’s population, and continued to kill through several more waves in the years that followed.
#2: 1918 Flu Pandemic (Spanish Flu) (1918 - 1920)
Various strains of the influenza virus have wreaked havoc on the world again and again, but there are two things that ensured this outbreak’s inclusion: it afflicted 500 million people, killing between 50-100 million, and it mainly killed healthy adults. Most flu viruses are dangerous for the very young, the very old and the already weakened; but this strain of the H1N1 virus caused the immune systems of its victims to jump into overdrive and attack, and the healthier the immune system the more violent the result. Affecting countries across the globe as isolated the Pacific Islands or the Arctic; the outbreak nicknamed the Spanish flu has been labeled one of history’s worst natural disasters.
#1: The Black Death (1346 - 1353)
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Peaking in the 14th-century, the Black Death is estimated to have killed between 75-200 million people, which represented roughly 30-60% of Europe’s population at the time. Suspected by many to be a version of the bubonic plague that originated in infected rodents, this disease was most easily recognized by the tumors that covered victims’ bodies. While quarantines were attempted, there was very little that could be done to stop this infection due to its speed and lethality; bodies littered the streets as cemeteries reached capacity. 1346 to 1353 marked the Bubonic Plague’s most deadly outbreak, but Europe had to deal with recurring epidemics spanning centuries. The last major such outbreak in England was the Great Plague of London, which added another 100,000 to the death toll.
