Largest Events Driving Changes to Life Expectancy Through Time
In my book The Changing World Order: Why Nations Succeed and Fail, I show these charts of how life expectancy
has changed through time. Here, I wanted to share some of the largest events that drove these historical moves
up and down. Note that prior to 1800, these charts only reflect shifts in UK life expectancy, but I am listing global
events here and including events over a longer time frame.

This list is necessarily incomplete, due to both missing data and the difficulty of determining the death toll ofsome events. Our goal here is to provide some color on the types and frequency of large death events throughtime as opposed to creating a complete catalogue.

TypeDates

RegionDeath Toll(Million)

Death Toll(% Wld Pop)Conquests by Genghis Khan

War

1206-27

Asia

40

10.2%

Great Famine

Famine1315-17

Europe--Hundred Years' WarWar

1337-1453

Europe3.5

0.9%

Pandemic

1347-52

Europe/Asia/Africa

150

38.3%

Internal Conflict

1340-70

China

7.5

1.9%

EventBlack Death
Fall of Yuan Dynasty
Conquests by Tamerlane
New World smallpox
Cocoliztli epidemic
Russian Time of Troubles

War1370-1405

Asia

174.4%

Pandemic

Starting 1520

Americas--Pandemic

1545-48

Mexico122.4%

Internal Conflict

1606-13

Russia50.9%
1.3%

Thirty Years' WarWar

1618-48

Europe7.5

Deccan famine

Famine1630-32

India

7.4

1.3%

War/Internal Conflict

1635-52

China

254.4%

Fall of Ming Dynasty
Great Bengal famine

Famine1770-76

India

101.1%

Chalisa famine

Famine1783-84

India

101.1%

Doja bara famine

Famine1791-92India

101.0%

Revolutionary/Napoleonic Wars

War

1792-1815

Europe40.4%

Four Famines in ChinaFamine

1810-49China

454.3%

Taiping Rebellion

Internal Conflict

1850-64China

201.6%

Madras famine

Famine1876-78

India

80.6%

North China Famine

Famine1876-79

China

110.8%

Mahdist War

War/Internal Conflict

1881-98

Sudan

5.50.4%

Third plague

Pandemic

Starting 1885

Global120.8%

War

1885-1908

Africa100.7%

Congo Free StateWWIWar1914-18

Largely Europe

150.8%

1918 flu

Pandemic

1918-20

Global50

2.7%

Russian Civil War

Internal Conflict

1918-22

Russia90.5%

Famine in Russia

Famine1921-22

Russia50.3%

Chinese Civil War

Internal Conflict

1927-49

China

70.4%

Famine in China

Famine1927-29

China

6.50.3%

Famine in Ukraine

Famine1932-33

USSR50.2%

WWIIWar

1939-45

Global652.8%

Great Leap Forward famine

Famine1958-60

China

321.1%

Vietnam WarWar

1954-75

Vietnam

4.20.2%

HIV/AIDS

Pandemic

1981-Present

Global350.8%

Famine in North Korea

Famine

1995-99

North Korea

2.50.0%

Second Congo WarWar

1998-2003

Africa3.80.1%Pandemic

2019-Present

Global50.1%

COVID-19 (through Nov 2021)

Sources:
R. Acuna-Soto, D. W. Stahle, M. K. Cleaveland, M. D. Therrell, “Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century
Mexico,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 8, no. 4 (2000): 360–62,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2730237.
Anne Applebaum, “How Stalin Hid Ukraine’s Famine from the World,” Atlantic, October 13, 2017,https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2017/10/red-famine-anne-applebaum-ukraine-sovietunion/542610.
Helena Cobban, “1630: Famine in Gujarat, Dutch Colonizing Success in Brazil,” Just World News (blog), April 20,
2021, https://justworldnews.org/2021/04/20/1630-famine-in-gujarat-dutch-colonizing-success-in-brazil.
Barbara Crossette, “Korean Famine Toll: More Than 2 Million,” New York Times, August 20, 1999,
https://www.nytimes.com/1999/08/20/world/korean-famine-toll-more-than-2-million.html.
Stephen Devereux, “Famine in the Twentieth Century” (working paper, Institute of Development Studies,
University of Sussex, Brighton, 2000), https://www.ids.ac.uk/download.php?file=files/dmfile/wp105.pdf.
“Famine in Russia: 1921–1922,” Modern Records Centre (website), University Library, University of Warwick,United Kingdom, last modified February 3, 2017,https://warwick.ac.uk/services/library/mrc/archives_online/digital/russia/famine.
Ralph A. Graves, “Fearful Famines of the Past: History Will Repeat Itself Unless the American People Conserve
Their Resources,” National Geographic, 1917.
Bill Marsh, “Population Control, Marauder Style,” infographic, New York Times, November 6, 2011,https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2011/11/06/opinion/06atrocities_timeline.html?
pagewanted=all.
Cormac Ó Gráda, Famine: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011).
Michael S. Rosenwald, “History’s Deadliest Pandemics, from Ancient Rome to Modern America,” Washington
Post, October 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/local/retropolis/coronavirusdeadliest-pandemics.
Aditya Sarkar, “The Danger of Researching ‘in Silos’: Lessons from the Chinese Famine of 1876–9,” Reinventing
Peace (blog), World Peace Foundation, Fletcher School, Tufts University, September 27, 2016,
https://sites.tufts.edu/reinventingpeace/2016/09/27/lessons-from-the-chinese-famine-of-1876-9.
Amardeep Singh, “Forgetting the Famines” (lecture, Michigan State University, Ann Arbor, March 2017),
https://scalar.lehigh.edu/kiplings/forgetting-the-famines-talk-by-amardeep-singh.
“Coronavirus World Map: Tracking the Global Outbreak,” data tracking web page, New York Times, accessed
November 1, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-cases.html.