What are your thoughts?

I'd go for other. When the Mongols invaded and ruled China. Casualties were in the tens of millions - the Chinese became more xenophobic, effects of which are still lingering today. :(

If you meant natural disasters, then any one of the hundreds of times when the Yellow River broke its banks. It was known as China's Sorrow for a reason... :(

KD - if you're going to include events over a significant time then World War 2 must rank up there....

If it's a non-human created event, the Black Death had effects on Europe as dramatic as anything else...

For a single event....? Lisbon Earthquake perhaps?

which means I voted 'other', forgot to mention that

Of the events quoted I could care less about the Titanic or the Hindenburg on any historic scale (yes, people died, but they do every day). And I suspect that in a few years time the WTC attack won't be quite the event it's regarded as now. Even Pompeii didn't really do a lot in the grand scheme of things.

Originally posted by MadScot
KD - if you're going to include events over a significant time then World War 2 must rank up there....After the Mongols stomped thru China, more than half of all Chinese died, by the most conservative estimate. Whole regions in Western and Northern China emptied of people (which had been prosperous provinces for eons) and only slowly recovered when the native Ming returned to power. Like Sichuan, the population fell fr 10 million or so to less than half a million IIRC. It was terrible.

You know how the Mongols made war. And the Chinese were fighting back, in some areas. Prior to that, North China had already been invaded and occupied by other nomads (the Jurchen Jin, Tangut Xixia, Khitai Liao).

If it's a non-human created event, the Black Death had effects on Europe as dramatic as anything else...Indeed. But the Black Death, supposedly, originated in China too...

I think it's pointless to compare which was the worst disaster. All disasters were terrible. :(

KD - I wasn't disagreeing with your suggestions, they seem pretty reasonable options. I was more disagreeing with anything other than "other" on the ballot

And the 30 years war I should also have mentioned, the depopulation was pretty dramatic there too.

War isn't fun, basically.

If we're talking about recent major natural disasters, this might be on the list:

In late 1815, the volcano Tambora on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia erupted, killing tens of thousands of native Indonesians. The volcano also had a global environmental impact, releasing vast quantities of fine ash into the atmosphere. It took a year to spread globally and led to such major climate change that 1816 became known as 'the year without a summer'. In Europe crop failures in the cold, damp weather resulted in famine, rioting and disease. Snow fell in New England in June and frost covered the southern United States on the fourth of July.

Weird.

Speaking ratio of death in a population, Invasion of China by Mongols is not bad, as Knight-Dragon told.
Maybe there are worst barbarians than Mongols.
Maybe there is a worst disaster:
The genocide of the population of all a continent,
by the europeans, after 1492.

natural disaster? the evolution of apes into an intellegent being capable of destroying its own environment.

historic: mmmmh........the hitler stalin mao mass murder combo

the Decimation/Genocide of native Americans

but as far as your list goes, I picked world trade center

These are not events over time. Just single events. Wars don't count either.

Originally posted by carniflex
Speaking ratio of death in a population, Invasion of China by Mongols is not bad, as Knight-Dragon told.
Maybe there are worst barbarians than Mongols.
Maybe there is a worst disaster:
The genocide of the population of all a continent,
by the europeans, after 1492.

I agree, the spread of European diseases into the Americas was the worst thing I can think of. Millions of Aztecs, Incas, and countless other tribes were exterminated by smallpox alone. In terms of bodycount, that is chilling.

I was hoping for a "Giant Radioactive Monkey" option ;).

On topic: Well IMO it would be the World Trade Center Terrisom Attack in New York, then the Hindinberg and the Titianic

On topic, then, if we have to pick discrete events I still don't like any of the ones offered.

I still like the Lisbon Earthquake.
Does Hiroshima count, or are acts of war also excluded.

The options given are just too insignificant on a world scale.

Acts of War are excluded.

The Tokyo Earthquake of 1923 (?)? It caused a great fire that burned down almost the whole city, killed many and made all the rest homeless...

There was one earthquake at Tangshan (IIRC) during the Ming dynasty in China, which was reputed to be the most destructive in history.

I forgot about the European invasion of the New World. :blush: Indeed, that's probably the most destructive chain of events of all... :(

How about the collapse of the Roman empire, which resulted in centuries of chaos throught europe in which many millions were killed and others were hurt by side affects (for example: religious fanaticism resulted in undeveloped sciene which resulted in diseases killing many millions over all this time).
I don't think the WTC is so big historically. It's not hard to find cases in which many more people were killed, including many cases when these people were civilians. The war resulting from these attacks is also not nearly as bad as most wars during history.

If acts of war are excluded, it's the Black Plague, with AIDS being second.

9/11 The day America was no longer free from war...

Then comes the Stock Market Crash, since it sent the entire world (except France) into Depression

Tokyo Earthquake of 1923 was pretty big too.

Titanic was certainly a catastrophy,but not a disaster and it even was a relatively "small" ship catastrophy.
Out of these above Black Friday,because it had the biggest impact thus far (it's really to early to talk historically about 9/11).

The worst disaster in history was the discovery of A-Bombs.Even the Mongols could not have eradicated all mankind neither the Plague (no intercontinental contact),but A-Bombs can do so.

Originally posted by puglover
What are your thoughts?

Lenin and Stalin.

as far as tactical errors are concerned, hitler made the biggest mistake of his life when he declared war on the USSR.

The Stock market crash because it caused WW2. If there was no Great depression than there would be hitler to revive germany from the depression and further more, he would not have rallied support from the ppl to invade other countries.

Not really. The Versalies Treaty was not part of the Depression. The Versalies Treaty started the Second World War not the Great Depression.

Originally posted by puglover
Not really. The Versalies Treaty was not part of the Depression. The Versalies Treaty started the Second World War not the Great Depression.

Yep. Actually, the Versalies Treaty caused the depression in Germany, so France was never really affected by the depression, and they spent all their money on the maginot line ;)

Originally posted by Panda
If acts of war are excluded, it's the Black Plague, with AIDS being second.

Depends on how you measure it. The Black Death killed 25% of Europe's population between 1346 and 1352, but that number was not particularly high in absolute terms.

As Dark Ascendant reminded us, the germs carried over by Europeans wiped out millions of American natives. Recent estimates from archaeological evidence suggest that as many as 19 million may have died, perhaps 95% of the pre-contact population of the Americas. This process is thought by archaeologists to have taken no more than a century from first contact.

However, the influenza epidemic of 1919 killed 21 million people, more in absolute terms than any single epidemic before or since.

Whichever way you slice it, any of the epidemics make the Hindenburg (a few dozen died), the Titanic (a few hundred died) or even 9/11 look insignificant.

The eruption of Toba approximately 75,000 years ago. It caused the global human population to crash to around 5-10,000 (according to evidence from mitochondrial DNA).

We nearly became extinct.

How About the Holocaust?

The murder of Austrias prince Ferdinand in 1914. This has caused WW1 and indirectly WW2 and the cold war.

Russia would have gone to communism anyway, because of the extreme poverty.

If all man-made catastrophes are excluded you should also have excluded Sept. 11th and maybe even Black Friday.

If it stays in it is clearly the worst of those listed, as it indirectly caused the death of millions of people and (even more directly) the suffering of millions more.

Originally posted by Silverflame


Yep. Actually, the Versalies Treaty caused the depression in Germany, so France was never really affected by the depression, and they spent all their money on the maginot line ;)

Not true, the German economy had recovered from Versalies and WW1 by 1924, (there was huge hyperinflation and unemployment in 1923 due to the French and Versalies), it was the stock market crash of 1929 that caused the depression in Germany (apaerently the country hardest hit in the world by the great depression) and it was only during this period that the Nazis had a hope of gaining power (by demoratic means) which of course they did in 1933 leading to WW2.

At least that's what I learnt in G.C.S.E. History! :D

I found it hard to decide between Hindenburg and the depression, coz Hindenburg ended the age of blips. But then I figured out that that's just a minor happening, so I voted for the Depression.

The WTC strike also was kinda important, coz it made the US even more paranoid and made Bush almost seem as a great president. (Not from my POV, but..)

I would have to say the Black Death, the plague is a horrible disease.

I really think this needs to be broken up into worst event man could have prevented, worst pestilence/disease/epidemic, and worst natural disaster. Otherwise, it's too scattered.

I'll pitch in with one of the most fascinating natural disasters: the Krakatoa eruption in 1883, which reshaped chunks of the Pacific and caked the world's airstreams with ash.

But for mass death, tragedy and destruction, Knight-Dragon is (as usual) correct once again as our token asian historical presence. Naturally, the hundreds of thousands killed over and and over again through history in the litany of floods in Bangladesh, floods along the flood plains of south China and quakes in Japan far outweigh anything that's ever been inflicted by God/Mother Nature on the West.

R.III

Other-

Carrottop's carreer.

I saw an interesting historical piece on the Influenza Epidemic of 1918. It was during the waning stages of WWI, but had it occured earlier, America may not have ever entered the war.
The first cases of the influenza epidemic in Britain appeared in Glasgow in May, 1918. It soon spread to other towns and cities and during the next few months the virus killed 228,000 people in Britain. This was the highest mortality rate for any epidemic since the outbreak of cholera in 1849.

In Britain desperate methods were used to prevent the spread of the disease. Streets were sprayed with chemicals and people started wearing anti-germ masks. Some factories changed their no-smoking rules under the mistaken impression that tobacco fumes could kill the virus. Others believed that eating plenty of porridge would protect you from this killer disease. However, despite valiant attempts, all treatments devised to cope with this new strain of influenza were completely ineffectual.

The USA was also very badly affected by the virus. By September a particularly virulent strain began to sweep through the country. By early December about 450,000 Americans had died of the disease.

The country that suffered most was India. The first cases appeared in Bombay in June 1918. The following month deaths were being reported in Karachi and Madras. With large numbers of India's doctors serving with the British Army the country was unable to cope with the epidemic. Some historians claim that between June 1918 and July 1919 over 16,000,000 people in India died of the virus.

It has been estimated that throughout the world over 70 million people died of the influenza pandemic. In India alone, more people died of influenza than were killed all over the world during the entire First World War.Here (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWinfluenzia.htm)

The shocking thing is that within a decade it was almost forgotten. It was treated as an act of God. The dead were buried. Life went on. My Grandfather remarried and my mother was conceived.

J

the shoa

I have to say Tambora, the black death being the second worst.

I voted other:

4/26/1986, nuclear reactor disaster in Tschernobyl, Russia

Sinking of passenger ferry Estonia comes to mind. Not by far the worst disaster but still.

Personaly it was the WTC because I lost people I knew.. other that that I'd say the Buebonic plague, didn't it kill of the majority of Europe??

The yellow plague
The spanish flue

The 2000 US Presidential Election

or the bubonic plague.. they're about at par.

Originally posted by sabo10
Personaly it was the WTC because I lost people I knew.. other that that I'd say the Buebonic plague, didn't it kill of the majority of Europe??


1/2 of the urban population, 1/3 of the entire population

The bubonic plague also killed many many animals, like sheeps and cows.

I voted for the stock market crash but others came to mind that weren't up there, like Chernobyl.

IF you want the answers to this question, look to the Guinness Book of World Records. They have a preety nice section on disasters.

If it's true as they says, that the chinese wall cost i life per stone, it means a hell lot of casualities:(