An epidemic is a
disease that can
be spread from person to person
and affects many individuals
all at the same time in a
location where the disease is
not permanently prevalent.
A pandemic is like an epidemic,
but is much larger in scale.
Pandemics can affect whole
countries, continents,
and sometimes even
the entire world.
Today, we're going
to take a look
at the most destructive
epidemics and pandemics
in human history.
But before we get started,
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OK.
Ready to hear some scary stuff?
Remember, we did warn you.
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Striking at about 430 BCE
during the Peloponnesian War,
the Plague of Athens
took out somewhere
in the area of 100,000 people
within a three year period.
If that doesn't
sound too impressive,
keep in mind that's a full
25% of the entire Athenian
population of the day.
In order to help others
later identify it,
the Athenian general
and historian Thucydides
recorded his own
eyewitness account
of the plague and its symptoms.
He described his sickness as
presenting with a high fever,
diarrhea, and a pustular rash.
Equally disturbing is
Thucydides' description
of the social effects
of the epidemic.
He claimed that a widespread
belief the plague could not
be survived caused
people to start behaving
like criminals and mobs.
He wrote, "The catastrophe
was so overwhelming
that men, not knowing what
would happen next to them,
became indifferent to every
rule of religion or law."
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Also known as the
Plague of Galen,
the Antonine Plague ravaged the
Roman Empire from 165 to 180
CE.
While the nature of the
plague isn't known today,
it's believed that it might
have been an outbreak of measles
or smallpox.
Whatever the case,
historians think
it was likely brought to Rome
by troops returning from war.
At its most deadly,
the Antonine Plague
was killing a full quarter of
all who became infected by it.
In the end, it is
believed to have killed
roughly 60 million people.
And it wasn't just the poor
and needy who suffered.
The list of the dead is
believed to have included
Lucius Verus, a Roman emperor.
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From about 249 to 262
CE, the Roman Empire
was afflicted by an
epidemic that eventually
came to be known as
the Plague of Cyprian,
in honor of the
early Christian saint
and writer who
recorded the event.
Contemporary accounts suggest
the symptoms included vomiting,
bloodshot eyes, loss
of hearing, blindness,
and loss of coordination.
Historians don't agree on which
disease was behind the plague,
but candidates include
smallpox, some type of flu,
or a strain of the Ebola virus.
It is believed that the
epidemic at its worst,
was killing 5,000
people a day in Rome.
In the aftermath,
the empire faced
some of its most difficult
years and very nearly collapsed.
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The Plague of Justinian
infected the Byzantine Empire
around 541 CE and
is considered one
of the first recorded pandemics.
You may want to check out some
of our other videos about it.
At its peak, this plague killed
roughly 10,000 people a day
and ultimately took the lives
of roughly 100 million people
around the world.
While many suspected the
Plague of Justinian originated
in China or India and was then
spread through sea trading
routes, the particular
virus or disease
that caused the pandemic
was never identified.
It lasted 225 years before
it finally disappeared.
And it managed to
alter the course
of human political history by
preventing the Byzantine Empire
from spreading into Italy.
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Smallpox is the name for a
highly contagious disease that
is caused by variola virus.
Though no one knows how
smallpox came into existence
or how it spread so fast,
the earliest known cases
come from Egypt and India.
The oldest known
evidence for smallpox
actually comes from the mummy of
the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses V.
Ramses died in 1145 BCE.
And his remains show signs
of the same pockmarks
that are associated with
this particular disease.
Smallpox epidemics
are believed to have
killed massive numbers of
people during the Middle Ages
and within the Roman Empire.
It was eventually introduced
to the Western hemisphere
in the 17th century.
Brought by European
explorers and settlers,
it led directly to the deaths
of millions of people native
to North, South,
and Central America.
It is also believed
to have decimated
the populations of the Aztec
and Inca civilizations.
As if all that's not
frightening enough,
the Japanese smallpox epidemic,
which lasted only from 735
to 737 CE, killed off
approximately one-third
of the entire
population of Japan.
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Malaria is an infectious
disease caused
by a parasite
found in mosquitoes
that infects as many as 200
million people every year.
Highly resistant
to drugs, it is one
of the most consistently deadly
pandemics in human history.
Spread principally through
those same mosquitoes,
malaria typically impacts
less developed countries.
Though scientists
didn't understand it
or how it was spread
until the 1800s,
this particular epidemic
has been around a while.
Documented descriptions that
match the symptoms of malaria
date all the way
back to 2700 BCE.
Some even believe it may
have been responsible
for the demise of Genghis Khan.
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Black Death is the
colloquial name
for the bubonic plague, which
ravaged Europe's population
throughout most of the 1300s.
It is the most notorious
pandemic in human history.
And we have plenty of
videos about this one.
Caused by a bacteria called
"Yersinia pestis," which
is highly deadly to
humans, the plague
was spread by fleas who were
themselves immune to it.
The fleas would
latch onto rats, who
were spread by merchant ships
moving from Asia to Europe.
The Black Plague
is characterized
by oozing, bleeding
sores and high fevers.
During the 14th
century, it is thought
to have killed somewhere
in the neighborhood of 50
million people throughout
Asia, Africa, and Europe.
In fact, it is
believed 30% to 60%
of Europe's total population
was completely wiped out.
It was also persistent.
Various forms of
the plague continued
to spring up and become
a recurring threat
for the next century or so.
Each time it reappeared,
it claimed even more lives.
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The Cocoliztli
Epidemic, also known
as the "Great Pestilence,"
was an incident
that occurred from 1545 to
1548 in what is today Mexico.
A mysterious illness
or illnesses,
characterized by high
fevers and bleeding,
swept through the
Mexican highlands.
While the identity of the
sickness is still unknown,
some modern researchers
suspect a strain of salmonella
called "Paratyphi C" might
have been the initial cause.
Today, estimates
for the death toll
range from five to
15 million people,
making it the deadliest
epidemic in Mexican history.
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Another outbreak of the bubonic
plague, the Moscow Plague,
killed 50,000 to
100,000 people in 1770.
There is no exact figure.
But it is believed this
outbreak killed about one-third
of Moscow's population
at the time.
Before all was said
and done, the city
experienced food shortages
and intense rioting.
If there is a
silver lining, it's
that after this
reappearance in Moscow,
the bubonic plague essentially
disappeared from Europe
in the 18th century.
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The pandemic that has come to
be called the "Spanish flu"
started in 1918 and would go
on to infect an entire third
of the world's population.
Estimates on the
death rate vary.
But this particular
sickness is believed
to have affected roughly
500 million people
and taken 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 unsure of where
in the Spanish flu originated.
France, China, and
Britain have all
been suggested as a potential
birthplace of the virus,
and so 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 called
the Spanish flu?
Well, though it was one of
the most ruthless pandemics
in history, it struck
during World War I.
And most of its
destruction wasn't
reported on at the time
because of censorship.
Spain, however, was a neutral
country during the war
and its newspapers were the
only ones to cover the pandemic.
This led to the
misnomer "Spanish flu,"
which has caused some
people to falsely believe
the disease originated in Spain.
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The third pandemic
was an outbreak
of the 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 ultimately
have taken the lives of as
many as 15 million people.
It wasn't until 1898
that Paul-Louis Simond
discovered the
cause of the disease
was brown rats and rat fleas.
This discovery, the first time
a scientist had conclusively
demonstrated what
caused the plague,
helped curb the
spread of the sickness
and eventually led to the
creation of a vaccine.
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The swine flu pandemic
lasted from 2009 to 2010
and is believed to have killed
over 200,000 people worldwide.
Rooted in a unique influenza
virus that had never previously
been identified in
animals or humans,
it posed a huge
problem for scientists.
The closest related flus were
the North American swine, H1N1,
virus and the Eurasian
swine, H1N1, virus.
But investigations
quickly showed
that most of the people infected
had never been exposed to pigs.
This made it clear that
the new virus was only
affecting humans.
At the time, the 2009
H1N1 was considered
one of the most deadly
modern pandemics
and served as a warning about
how incredibly vulnerable
we humans still are
to influenza strains.
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The 2014 Ebola outbreak was the
largest known breakout of Ebola
in history and constituted the
first actual Ebola epidemic.
This outbreak, which would
last roughly two years,
would prove especially
destructive to the people
of West Africa.
Finally, in March 2016, the
World Health Organization
determined that the
situation was under control.
Sadly, this was long after
at least 28,616 cases had
been confirmed and at
least 11,310 deaths
had occurred throughout Liberia,
Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
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Acquired Immune Deficiency
Syndrome, more widely known
by the acronym AIDS,
has caused the deaths
of millions of people.
Scientists believe the
disease originated in Africa
during the 1920s and
spread slowly from there.
By 1981, a case
had been reported
in Los Angeles, California.
The emergence of the disease
had deep and lasting effects
on American culture.
On the upside, safe sex
and the use of condoms
became far more common.
On the downside, in
addition to the lives lost,
the epidemic triggered
waves of bigotry
that were directed at
the LGBT community.
The virus form of
AIDS, known as "HIV,"
attacks the immune system.
A person infected
with HIV can contract
AIDS when their body becomes too
weak to fight off infections.
However, not all of those
who are infected with HIV
will get AIDS.
Many with the virus are able
to live normal, healthy lives,
thanks to antiretroviral
treatments
which have become more widely
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
become 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.
