The novel coronavirus has taken just a few months to sweep the globe. How many will die, how societies will change — those questions are impossible to fathom as the disease rages. But history shows that past pandemics have reshaped societies in profound ways. Hundreds of millions of people have died. Empires have fallen. Governments have cracked. Generations have been annihilated. Here is a look at how pandemics have remade the world.
1900
’10
’20
’30
’40
’50
’60
’70
’80
’90
’00
’10
2020
1000
1100
1200
1300
1400
1500
1600
1700
1800
1900
2020
0
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
DETAIL
ON RIGHT
DEATHS FROM PANDEMICS, FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE MODERN ERA
Antonine Plague
165-180 A.D.
5 million
Third Plague
1885
12 million
New World
smallpox
1520-unknown
25 to 55 million
SARS
2002-2003
Less than 1,000
Swine flu
2009-unknown
200,000
1918 flu
1918-1920
50 million
Black Death
1347-1352
75 to 200 million
MERS
2015
Less than 1,000
Ebola
2014-2016
11,000
Russian flu
1889-1890
1 million
Plague of Justinian
541-542 A.D.
30 to 50 million
Asian flu
1957-1958
1 million
Italian Plague
1629-1631
1 million
COVID-19
2020
An estimated 70,798
(as of April 6)
Yellow Fever
Late 1800s
150,000
HIV/AIDS
1981-current
50 million
Range of
estimate
Hong Kong flu
1968-1970
1 million
Great Plague of London
1665
75,000 to 100,000
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