Where is the bloodiest area with most deaths within a single day?
Upvote:-1
He is asking in a SINGLE day over a few square miles?
I have no idea, but I am going to guess it was the battle of Cannae for battle deaths (estimated at about 80,000).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Cannae
It was fought on a relatively small area, and a lot of romans died.
And Hiroshima, for just the most number of deaths in a small area in a day. Estimated at 90,000. (and the blast radius of the first atom bomb was very small just a couple of miles at most)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
I would have included the Tsunami of 2004 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Indian_Ocean_earthquake_and_tsunami .. 200k+ people died, but over a VERY large area, in a single day.
Upvote:4
If you want within a single day and within a very confined area like a square kilometer, then the final suppression of the Nika riots on or about 18 January 532 AD is a good contender. (See here and here.) With 30,000-35,000 rioters in the Hippodrome in Constantinople, the imperial troops blocked the exits and slaughtered everyone.
I realize there are some battles with higher one-day death tolls, but most battles take place over considerably larger areas.
Also, since the Hippodrome was only about 10 hectares (1/10 of a square kilometer), you could make the space requirement quite small and still count the full death toll.
Upvote:5
Strictly following the question's specification
deaths at the hands of others, or themselves, using any conventional weapons (swords, bow/arrows/guns, etc)
On 14 January 1761 there was the Third Battle of Panipat (North of Delhi) when an Afghan army invaded India. The sources that Wikipedia gives add up to a total of minimum 70,000 killed and maximum 85,000.
After the battle, there were "Another 40,000–70,000 non-combatants massacred". Some of these deaths were on the same day as the battle but others were the next day (I don't think anyone can say how many on each day).
Upvote:7
The Rwandan genocide is a fair contender for the top place in terms of casualties per day -- at 5-10k/day.
Another is WW2, which resulted in 70 million to 85 million casualties depending on the estimates (50-56m from the war itself, and another 19-28m from disease and famine), over the course of 2,193 days (Sep 1 1939 to Sep 2 1945) -- 32-39k/day.
A few localized bombing campaigns probably score highest on the list. For instance:
- The nuke that struck Hiroshima killed 90–146k people -- of which 70-80k killed in a mere few instants, which I'd surmise is the absolute record in history when normalized per day, and hopefully it will remain that way.
- Operation Meetinghouse (firebombing of Tokyo on Mar 9-10 1945) killed an estimated 100k people in just about 2 hours and 40 minutes -- possibly the highest rate of death when normalized per day (nearly 900k) in the history of conventional warfare.
Several WW1 battles were more localized and did excruciating amounts of casualties -- Passchendaele, Verdun, Somme... The Hundred Days Offensive, which basically ended the war, resulted in 1.8m casualties -- 18k/day.
Also worth noting are a few massacres that stood out in the medieval era and earlier. In no particular order:
The Mongols did a few wholesale massacres that captured the imaginations at the time -- Merv and Nishapur in particular. Numbers as high as a million+ are circulating on the web but I'm frankly skeptical because Persia's entire population at the time was around 2.5m. The two main sources on these seem to be Ata-Malik Juvayni and Rashid-al-Din Hamadani, neither of which were born when the events occurred.
Timur was equally murderous as he conquered Persia. Here too, the very large numbers are suspicious, albeit less so than those of the Mongols. In The History of Terrorism: From Antiquity to Al Qaeda, Chaliand and Blin (2007) put the number of deaths in Isfahan at 100-200k, while Encyclopaedia iranica and Christensen (1993; The Decline of Iranshahr) both put the number closer to 70k. There also appears to have been a witness at the time who counted more than 28 towers constructed of about 1,500 heads each -- suggestion a bit over 42k.
The Romans completely destroyed Carthage. It didn't happen overnight - the process reportedly took 7 days and 6 nights. Between 150-450k Carthagenians may have died. (The 450k number also seems high IMO: the entire Roman Empire had a population of 4-5m by around 100BC)
You'll find a few more good contenders in these two related questions:
Also, if you normalize this further so the rate of death is based on the total population of an area or whatever else expresses the death rate not in absolute but in percentage of applicable population, then by all means Napoleonic battles such as Borodino and Leipzig or some US Civil War battles like Gettysburg deserve a mention here too. As would Nazi concentration camps, which basically industrialized murder.
And if you include diseases, then think Black Death or Columbian Exchange.
Upvote:11
Given that the question asks specifically for conventional weapons (so ruling out Hiroshima and Nagasaki), and is now limited to a 24 hour period in history, you are probably looking at Operation Meetinghouse where 279 B-29 bombers dropped 1,665 tons of bombs on Tokyo on the night of 9–10 March, 1945.
Approximately 100,000 people were killed.
The bombs dropped by the B-29s were mostly E-46 cluster bombs and M-47 incendiary bombs. The E-46 cluster bombs each contained 38 M-69 incendiary bomblets. The M-69 bomblet itself contained napalm.
If you are interested in more details about the weapons employed, you might find Fire warfare : Incendiaries and flame throwers, published in 1946 by the United States. Office of Scientific Research and Development of interest (especially Chapter 1: Incendiary Bombs and Clusters).
The firestorm resulting from the raid caused more than 80,000 casualties. The exact number of dead will never be known, but:
- 79,466 bodies were recovered and recorded.
- The Tokyo Director of Health estimated 83,600 people were killed and 40,918 were wounded.
- The Tokyo Fire Department estimated that 97,000 were killed and 125,000 wounded.
- The Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department estimated that a total of 124,711 people were killed or wounded in the raid.
- A report by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey estimated the casualties to have been 87,793 killed and 40,918 injured.
(Figures from Frank, 1999, except as otherwise cited)
The British Pathé news archive has newsreel footage which shows the devastation caused by the raid.
Most historians estimate the total number killed on that night to be between 90,000 and 100,000, but some argue that the actual number may have been much higher.
Sources
- Richard B. Frank: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, 1999
More post
- 📝 Why didn't the Japanese develop air defenses after the bombing of Tokyo?
- 📝 Why did serfdom disappear gradually in England?
- 📝 How were horses disembarked from sail ships?
- 📝 Why is the writing on the Vindolanda plates changing when exposed to air?
- 📝 Is there any evidence in history to suggest that there was a Melanchro (dark-skinned) population in Colchis as claimed by Herodotus?
- 📝 Why was the Cuban Revolution (1953-1959) ultimately successful?
- 📝 What was the basis for the Nazis to support various ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union and elsewhere over the majority populations?
- 📝 Which European country sent the most slaves to the Americas?
- 📝 During the Chola dynasty how extensive was the use of Sanskrit in government and by the people?
- 📝 18th-century understanding of the word "colony?"
- 📝 Are there any specific events which grants a soldier permission to execute a prisoner on sight? (Like in the movie: Fury)
- 📝 Did the Soviet Union investigate greenhouses in the early 1920's?
- 📝 How did Hitler view Fr. Denis Fahey, Fr. Leonard Feeney, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis?
- 📝 What name was given to Victorian era of confidence?
- 📝 What factors discouraged the Nazis from focusing all their forces on the Caucasus region during Operation Barbarossa?
- 📝 From how far away could an experienced and skilled archer hit a man?
- 📝 Has the drought also revealed ancient structures in France as it did in Ireland?
- 📝 Are there any records of javelin throwing techniques from antiquity? For example, ancient Greece, such as peltasts?
- 📝 How many troops did Hitler send back from the Eastern front to face the Allies' assault?
- 📝 Why is the late Russian Empire associated with Byzantium while having little in common with it?
- 📝 Who had the shortest time in going from imprisonment to head of state within democratic processes?
- 📝 Does this CIA report describe the Soviet T-54 tank?
- 📝 Have there been "mechanical paintings" in real life?
- 📝 Why was the date moved by 10 days instead of 9 during Gregorian calendar reform?
- 📝 What is the original source for Vico's reference to Varro counting 30,000 pagan gods?
- 📝 In Edwardian England, did poor families arrange to have their children buried in the graves of unrelated adults?
- 📝 What WWII fighter raid did my great-uncle misremember?
- 📝 How many wars have there been in Europe since WW2?
- 📝 What was a "cable station" in WW2 Pacific War?
- 📝 How much was the wealthy elite harmed by the Bolshevik revolution?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Where is the bloodiest area with most deaths within a single day?
- 📝 Where is the bloodiest square mile on Earth?
- 📝 Where did the “vikings wear helmets with horn” stereotype come from and why?
- 📝 Where did John Adams write of the night he shared a bed and an argument with Benjamin Franklin? Did Franklin write of it as well?
- 📝 What can be considered to be the single most important reason for the decline of muslim Golden Age?
- 📝 Did the Spartans really taunt Philip II of Macedon with a single word?
- 📝 Where did tree spiking prevent the most logging?
- 📝 After the American Civil War, which states had the most problems with rejoining the Union?
- 📝 Has there ever been a case where a country adopted the currency of another country with a smaller economy?
- 📝 Where and when was the shortest calendar day in history, due to DST and calendar changes, etc?
- 📝 Where is the location shown in this picture on a modern day map?
- 📝 Where did Wilson state that the US would have to force access to markets with violence?
- 📝 When, where and with what propagation through Europe did the idea of gypsies stealing children occur?
- 📝 Did the PLO coordinate with Arab armies during the Six Day War?
- 📝 Why where individual servings replaced with shared dishes during the Song dynasty?
- 📝 Was there ever a type of powered model car/vehicle racing, where the cars were in no way controlled, and were all on the one single shared track?
- 📝 About how long ago was the most recent day on which a human did not die
- 📝 What ideas diffused into China via the trade route established by emperor Han Wudi with the area around Persia?
- 📝 Has there ever been a society with impartial distribution of privilege and punishment where all members of the society have equal status.
- 📝 Which historical figure is attributed with the most death of his people?
- 📝 Why, in the US, is Japanese brutality ignored compared with the Nazi brutality in WW2?
- 📝 Where did the Romans store their cash?
- 📝 Did the Soviets excel in one area of weaponry during World War II?
- 📝 Where did Hitler get the funds to invest in economic development programs such as the autobahn when the German economy was in a depression?
- 📝 Where did Asian Americans go to school during the 'separate but equal' era?
- 📝 Where did the Gaels originate?
- 📝 Was there ever a treaty between 2 entities with significantly different translations to the detriment of one party?
- 📝 Why didn't the US choose to demolish Tokyo with an atom bomb?
- 📝 How did the ancient Romans count with their fingers?
- 📝 Why did the German army execute so few soldiers in World War I compared to most other armies?