When was the deadliest year in human history in absolute terms?
Upvote:9
You're probably correct, it seems to be this year.
To start with, our inquiry can most likely be safely restricted to the last few decades. As this graph from Wikipedia establishes, in absolute terms, total deaths from recent years outstrips even the Second World War. The First World War, even with the influenza, was considerably less deadly than the Second.
Though the graph only began in 1900, the much smaller global population until the industrial revolutions means it gets progressively more unlikely the further back in time you go. Medieval plague deaths or other disasters, no matter how proportionally devastating, is limited in the total damage they can do.
For instance, the Black Death might have wiped out half of Medieval England, but the English population was no more than 7 million or so at the time.
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According to the United Nations Statistics Division, the crude death rate of the world is estimated to have declined from 19.09 in 1950 to ~7.7 now. Meanwhile, the population has grown from 2.536 billion to 7.795 billion. Mapping these figures out gives the following:
Death Rate Population Total Deaths
(per 1000) (in 1000s)
World 2020-2025 7.789 7795482.309 60719011.7
World 2015-2020 7.695 7383008.82 56812252.87
World 2010-2015 7.712 6958169.159 53661400.55
World 2005-2010 7.985 6542159.383 52239142.67
World 2000-2005 8.374 6145006.989 51458288.53
World 1995-2000 8.734 5751474.416 50233377.55
World 1990-1995 9.095 5330943.46 48484930.77
World 1985-1990 9.499 4873781.796 46296053.28
World 1980-1985 10.059 4458411.534 44847161.62
World 1975-1980 10.751 4079087.198 43854266.47
World 1970-1975 11.959 3700577.65 44255208.12
World 1965-1970 13.491 3339592.688 45054444.95
World 1960-1965 16.143 3033212.527 48965149.82
World 1955-1960 17.398 2772242.535 48231475.62
World 1950-1955 19.096 2536274.721 48432702.07
As you can see, the deadliest year in human history is right now - somewhere in the vicinity of 57 to 61 million.
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