The Most Destructive Pandemics and Epidemics In Human History

An epidemic is a disease that can be transmitted from person to person and affects many people at the same time in a place where the disease is not permanently prevalent. A pandemic is like an epidemic, but it is on a much larger scale. Pandemics can affect entire countries, continents, and sometimes even the entire world. Today we are going to take a look at the

most

destructive

epidemics

and

pandemics

in

human

history

. But before you begin, be sure to subscribe to the Weird History Channel. After that, we'd appreciate it if you could leave a comment and let us know what disturbing historical topics you'd like to hear about.

OK. Ready to hear scary things? Remember, we warned you. The plague of Athens, which struck around 430 BC. C. during the Peloponnesian War, it killed about 100,000 people in a period of three years. If that doesn't sound too impressive, keep in mind that it represents 25% of the entire Athenian population of the time. To help others identify it later, the Athenian general and historian Thucydides recorded his own eyewitness account of the plague and its symptoms. He described his illness as high fever, diarrhea and pustular rash. Equally disturbing is Thucydides' description of the social effects of the epidemic. He claimed that the widespread belief that the plague could not be survived caused people to begin behaving like criminals and mobs.

He wrote: "The catastrophe was so overwhelming that men, not knowing what would happen after them, became indifferent to every rule of religion or law." Also known as the Plague of Galen, the Antonine Plague devastated the Roman Empire between 165 and 180 AD. Although the nature of the plague is unknown today, it is believed that it could have been an outbreak of measles or smallpox. Whatever the case, historians believe it was probably brought to Rome by troops returning from war. At its deadliest, the Antonine plague was killing a quarter of all those infected by it. In the end, it is believed to have killed around 60 million people.

And it was not just the poor and needy who suffered. The list of dead is believed to have included Lucius Verus, a Roman emperor. Between approximately 249 and 262 AD, the Roman Empire was struck by an epidemic that eventually became known as the Plague of Cyprian, after the early Christian saint and writer who recorded the event. Contemporary accounts suggest that symptoms included vomiting, bloodshot eyes, hearing loss, blindness, and loss of coordination. Historians don't agree on what disease was behind the plague, but candidates include smallpox, some type of flu, or a strain of the Ebola virus. The epidemic, at its worst, is believed to have killed 5,000 people a day in Rome.

The empire subsequently faced some of its

most

difficult years and came close to collapsing. The Plague of Justinian infected the Byzantine Empire around 541 AD. and is considered one of the first recorded

pandemics

. You might want to watch some of our other videos on this. At its peak, this plague killed approximately 10,000 people per day and ultimately claimed the lives of approximately 100 million people worldwide. While many suspected that the Justinian plague originated in China or India and then spread via maritime trade routes, the particular virus or disease that caused the pandemic was never identified. It lasted 225 years before it finally disappeared.

And he managed to alter the course of

human

political

history

by preventing the Byzantine Empire from extending into Italy. Smallpox is the name of a highly contagious disease caused by the variola virus. Although no one knows how smallpox emerged or how it spread so quickly, the first known cases came from Egypt and India. The oldest known evidence of smallpox actually comes from the mummy of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses V. Ramses died in 1145 BC. And his remains show signs of the same pockmarks associated with this particular disease. Smallpox

epidemics

are believed to have killed large numbers of people during the Middle Ages and within the Roman Empire.

It was finally introduced to the Western Hemisphere in the 17th century. Brought by European explorers and settlers, it directly caused the deaths of millions of native people in North, South and Central America. It is also believed to have decimated the populations of the Aztec and Inca civilizations. As if all of this were not terrifying enough, the Japanese smallpox epidemic, which lasted only from 735 to 737 CE, killed approximately one-third of Japan's entire population. Malaria is an infectious disease caused by a parasite found in mosquitoes that infects about 200 million people each year. Highly resistant to drugs, it is one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

Malaria, which is transmitted mainly through those same mosquitoes, usually affects less developed countries. Although scientists didn't understand how it spread until the 19th century, this particular epidemic has been around for some time. Documented descriptions matching the symptoms of malaria date back to 2700 BC. Some even believe that he may have been responsible for the disappearance of Genghis Khan. Black Death is the colloquial name for the bubonic plague, which devastated the European population during most of the 13th century. It is the most notorious pandemic in human history. And we have many videos about this. Caused by a bacteria called "Yersinia pestis", which is highly deadly to humans, the plague was transmitted by fleas that were immune to it.

Fleas stuck to rats, which were spread by merchant ships traveling from Asia to Europe. The Black Death is characterized by festering, bleeding sores and high fevers. During the 14th century, it is believed to have killed about 50 million people in Asia, Africa and Europe. In fact, it is believed that between 30% and 60% of Europe's total population was completely wiped out. He was also persistent. Various forms of plague continued to emerge and become a recurring threat throughout the following century. Each time it reappeared, it claimed even more lives. The Cocoliztli Epidemic, also known as the "Great Pestilence", was an incident that occurred between 1545 and 1548 in what is now Mexico.

A mysterious disease or diseases, characterized by high fevers and hemorrhages, swept through the highlands of Mexico. While the identity of the disease is still unknown, some modern researchers suspect that a strain of salmonella called "Paratyphi C" may have been the initial cause. Today, estimates of the death toll range between five and 15 million people, making it the deadliest epidemic in Mexican history. Another outbreak of bubonic plague, the Moscow plague, killed between 50,000 and 100,000 people in 1770. There is no exact figure. But this outbreak is believed to have killed about a third of Moscow's population at the time. Before all was said and done, the city experienced food shortages and intense riots.

If there is a silver lining, it is that after this reappearance in Moscow, the bubonic plague virtually disappeared from Europe in the 18th century. The pandemic that has become known as the "Spanish flu" began in 1918 and would go on to infect a third of the world's population. Estimates of the mortality rate vary. But this particular disease is believed to have affected approximately 500 million people and claimed the lives of between 20 and 50 million people worldwide in just two years. Scientists would later identify the Spanish flu as a particularly brutal flu strain called "H1N1." The so-called Spanish flu also serves as a warning about what can be concluded from the name given to a pandemic.

Scientists are not sure where the Spanish flu originated. France, China and Great Britain have been suggested as possible birthplaces of the virus, as has the United States, where the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918. So why is it does the country call you? Spanish flu? Well, although it was one of the most ruthless pandemics in history, it occurred during World War I. And most of its destruction was not reported at the time due to censorship. Spain, however, was a neutral country during the war and its newspapers were the only ones that covered the pandemic.

This led to the misnomer "Spanish flu," which has led some people to mistakenly believe that the disease originated in Spain. The third pandemic was an outbreak of bubonic plague that originated in China and lasted from 1855 to the 1950s. Yes, this outbreak actually lasted almost 100 full years. The pandemic slowly spread beyond Asia to other continents and is believed to have ultimately claimed the lives of up to 15 million people. It was not until 1898 that Paul-Louis Simond discovered that the cause of the disease was brown rats and rat fleas. This discovery, the first time a scientist conclusively demonstrated what caused plague, helped slow the spread of the disease and eventually led to the creation of a vaccine.

The swine flu pandemic lasted from 2009 to 2010 and is believed to have killed more than 200,000 people worldwide. Rooted in a unique influenza virus that had never before been identified in animals or humans, it posed a big problem for scientists. The most closely related flus were the North American swine flu, the H1N1 virus, and the Eurasian swine flu, the H1N1 virus. But investigations quickly showed that most of the infected people had never been exposed to pigs. This made it clear that the new virus only affected humans. At the time, the 2009 H1N1 flu was considered one of the deadliest modern pandemics and served as a warning about how incredibly vulnerable humans still are to influenza strains.

The 2014 Ebola outbreak was the largest Ebola outbreak known in history and constituted the first true Ebola epidemic. This outbreak, which would last approximately two years, would prove especially

destructive

for the people of West Africa. Finally, in March 2016, the World Health Organization determined that the situation was under control. Unfortunately, this occurred long after at least 28,616 cases had been confirmed and at least 11,310 deaths had occurred in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone. Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, better known by the acronym AIDS, has caused the death of millions of people. Scientists believe the disease originated in Africa during the 1920s and slowly spread from there.

In 1981, a case was reported in Los Angeles, California. The emergence of the disease had profound and lasting effects on American culture. On the positive side, safe sex and condom use became much more common. On the negative side, in addition to the lives lost, the epidemic unleashed waves of intolerance directed at the LGBT community. The viral form of AIDS, known as "HIV," attacks the immune system. A person infected with HIV can get AIDS when his or her body becomes too weak to fight infections. However, not everyone infected with HIV will get AIDS. Many people who have the virus can lead normal, healthy lives thanks to antiretroviral treatments that have become more available over the years.

However, not everyone was so lucky. According to the World Health Organization, since the beginning of the epidemic, 75 million people have been infected with HIV and about 32 million have died from it. So what do you think? Which of these historical plagues would scare you the most? Let us know in the comments below. And while you're at it, check out some of these other videos from our Weird History.