The Most Tragic, Brutal and Horrible Events in History That Changed the World
Did you know that the Black Death is among the most tragic events to have ever occurred in the history of mankind, in that it claimed up to 200 million lives as recorded in history?
The world is full of cruelty. In the course of world events, there has been a lot of horrible events and tragedies that took place. Throughout the years there has been massive changes in the world we are living... Let's rewind the clock and reminisce on some of the most tragic, inhuman catastrophic events ever.
1] POL POT'S REGIME (1975-1979) – 1.5-2 million death
This horrible event took place in Cambodia. Pol Pot was a Cambodian political figure and a revolutionary. His ideology combined a Marxist-Leninist and Khmer Nationalist. He rose and led Cambodia's government from 1975-1979, but it was a big failure. During his regime, an estimated 2 million people died out of starvation, execution, diseases and etc. Why? His ideology failed. He attempted to engineer a classless communist society. This regime was considered by some as the most barbaric and murderous event in modern contemporary history.
2] IRISH POTATO FAMINE (1845-1849) – 1 million death
The Great Famine took place in Ireland. Potato was the main crop and agricultural backbone in Ireland that time. But the potatoes were damaged, heavily caused by potato blight that ravaged potato crops. There were several acts that also contributed to the famine like the corn law. This great hunger causes two-fifth of the Irish population to be wipe out and million Irish emigrated to the other part of the world.
3] NANKING MASSACRE (1937-1938) – 300,000 Death
This event was also called "Rape of Nanjing". This was just in a short period of time which lasted for about 6 weeks but the damaged it caused was brutal. This was done by the Japanese Imperial army to Chinese people in Nanjing. It was series of murder and mass rape by Japanese army. An estimated 300,000 died according to a Chinese consensus. There was widespread rape of Chinese women in which their family was ordered by the Japanese troops to rape their own child.
4] THE RWANDAN GENOCIDE (1994) – 1 million death
This genocide took place in Rwanda which happened for a very short time. In 1994, a clan named Hutu-ethnic majority murdered as many as 800,000 to 1 million people from Tutsi minority. Historian would called this a genocide against the Tutsi minority. It was 100 day period of massacre that wiped out 70% of Tutsi population. The genocide was said to be planned by the elites, political figures or core National government.
5] THE GREAT LEAP FORWARD (1958-1962) 45 million death
Considered to be a big setback and failure, is the Great Leap Forward by Mao Zedong. It was a social campaign by the communist party with the goal to transform the agrarian to a socialist society through industrialization but causes the biggest famine in world history. An estimated 45 million Chinese died due to this lackluster communist policy. Starvation, drowning and overworked led to series of death.
6] TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE (1600-1800) – 12 million slaves, only 9 million survived
Another brutal event was the African Slavery by the Westerners in almost all African nation excluding Ethiopia and Liberia. In the quest for further expansion economically, westerners specifically Spanish, French and Portuguese brought slaves to their new colony in the new world or Latin America. Slavery was prevalent in Africa with 12 million estimated. Transported to the New World only 9 million survived and were brought to the new land. Due to the labor shortage, the slave trade across the Atlantic was the solution to this.
7] THE BLACK DEATH (1346-1353) 75-200 Million people Died
The event that almost wiped out the world's population. Probably among the lists, this event happened earlier than most in the list, and most of us don't really know about this. This event is one of the most brutal tragic event that wiped out half of European population. Also labeled as the Great plague or Black Plague, it was the most horrible pandemic in human history. A bacteria classified as bacterium Yersinia pestis brought about a plague which caused chaos in entire Europe. Blaming religion, witchcrafts etc. this event also created social upheaval.
8] THE HOLOCAUST (1933-1945) – 6 million deaths; 17 million victims
Clearly, the world still remembers this horrifying, scary event in the mid 90's. As soon as Hitler came to power in 1933, problems began for the Jews. An estimated 6 million Jews were killed in Europe specifically in Germany and Poland. Led by Adolf Hitler and Nazi Ideology, calling it the final solution or cleansing of the world, it was also guided by the "Aryanism" ideology in which German thinks they are the superior race. It was very inhuman as young, old, male and females were brutally punished and killed. This event cost million of people to lose their lives and became refugees for years.
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