Event Archive

Smallpox is considered one of the deadliest diseases in human history. In the 20th century alone, it killed an estimated…

The Black Death was the most devastating pandemic in human history, wiping out an estimated 30–60% of Europe's populatio…

The 1918 Spanish Flu was the most severe pandemic in modern history. Unlike typical flu, it disproportionately killed yo…

World War II (1939–1945) was the deadliest conflict in human history, killing an estimated 70–85 million people — about…

Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease that has plagued humanity for millennia. Caused by Plasmodium parasites t…

HIV/AIDS emerged in the early 1980s and became one of the most destructive pandemics in history. The virus attacks the i…

The Mongol Conquests (1206–1368) under Genghis Khan and his successors created the largest contiguous land empire in his…

The Plague of Justinian was the first major pandemic recorded in history, striking the Byzantine Empire and surrounding…

The Taiping Rebellion (1850–1864) was a massive civil war in southern China, led by Hong Xiuquan who claimed to be the y…

The Great Chinese Famine (1959–1961) was the deadliest famine in human history, caused primarily by Mao Zedong's Great L…

World War I (1914–1918) was the first truly global armed conflict, involving most of Europe's major powers plus nations…

The Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–1945) was the largest Asian war of the 20th century, killing an estimated 8–22 millio…

The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic murder of six million Jews and five million others (Roma, disabled peo…

The Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) was one of Europe's most devastating conflicts, fought primarily in the Holy Roman Emp…

COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, first identified in Wuhan, China in December 2019. It spread globally…

The Russian Civil War (1917–1922) followed the Bolshevik Revolution and pitted the Red Army against a fragmented coaliti…

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) engulfed virtually all of Europe in a series of conflicts stemming from the French Revol…

The Chinese Civil War (1927–1949) between the Nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) and the Communist Party (CCP) killed an estim…

The Holodomor ('death by hunger' in Ukrainian) was a man-made famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1932–33 that killed an estimat…

Cholera has caused seven documented pandemics since 1817, all originating in the Ganges Delta of India. Caused by the ba…

The Second Congo War (1998–2003), known as 'Africa's World War', involved 9 countries and dozens of armed groups fightin…

The Korean War (1950–1953) pitted US-led UN forces supporting South Korea against North Korea backed by China and the So…

The Bengal Famine of 1943 killed an estimated 2–3 million people in British India (modern West Bengal and Bangladesh). A…

The Vietnam War (1955–1975) was a Cold War proxy conflict pitting communist North Vietnam and the Viet Cong against US-b…

The Nigerian Civil War (1967–1970) began when the predominantly Igbo eastern region of Nigeria declared independence as…

The Atlantic Slave Trade (c.1500–1900) forcibly transported approximately 12.5 million Africans across the Atlantic to t…

The Cambodian Genocide (1975–1979) was carried out by the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot, who sought to create an agrarian ut…

In 100 days between April and July 1994, Hutu extremist militias systematically massacred an estimated 800,000 Tutsi and…

The War of the Triple Alliance (1864–1870) pitted Paraguay against the combined forces of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay…

Beginning as an Arab Spring protest in 2011, Syria's civil war became the defining humanitarian catastrophe of the 2010s…

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022, the largest land war in Europe since WWII. Fighti…

On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 'Littl…

The Israel–Gaza War began on October 7, 2023 when Hamas launched the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust, killi…

On April 26, 1986, Reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Soviet Ukraine exploded during a safety test, r…

The 2014–2016 West African Ebola epidemic was the largest Ebola outbreak in history, primarily affecting Guinea, Liberia…

Hantavirus was first recognized in 1993 in the Four Corners region of the United States. It is transmitted through conta…