Pandemic's History

Smallpox [1570 B.C. Onwards]

1570 BCE

Smallpox is believed to have first infected humans around the time of the earliest agricultural settlements some 12,000 years ago. A few mummies from that era contain familiar-looking skin lesions. Historians speculate that smallpox likewise brought about the devastating Plague of Athens in 430 B.C. and the Antonine Plague of A.D. 165 to 180, the later of which killed an estimated 3.5 million to 7 million people. It reached Europe no later than the 6th century.

Plague of Justinian, Sania Pestis [Byzantine Empire]

541

"At the beginning of the malady, certain swellings, either on the groin or under the armpits…waxed to the bigness of a common apple, others to the size of an egg, some more and some less, and these the vulgar named plague-boils.” Blood and pus seeped out of these strange swellings, which were followed by a host of other unpleasant symptoms—fever, chills, vomiting, diarrea, aches and pains—and then, in short order, death.
25 to 50 million people died, about a quarter of Earth's population.

Dark Death/Bubonic Plague

1347

100-200 million dead, about 1/3 of the global population.
The bacillus travels from person to person through the air, as well as through the bite of infected fleas and rats. Officials in the Venetian-controlled port city of Ragusa were able to slow its spread by keeping arriving sailors in isolation until it was clear they were not carrying the disease. It caused a great impact on people's faith since they believed it's God's punishment.
[Link text] (history.com/topics/middle-ages/black-death)

Smallpox [15th century] America

1492

Smallpox broke once again in America during the 15th century when the new explorers came to the continent. The natives had no natural immunity towards the disease.
“There hasn’t been a kill off in human history to match what happened in the Americas—90 to 95 percent of the indigenous population wiped out over a century,” says Mockaitis. “Mexico goes from 11 million people pre-conquest to one million.”

The Great Plague of London [The plague resurfaced roughly every 10 years from 1348 to 1665—40 outbreaks in just over 300 years]

1665

Homes stricken by it were marked with a bale of hay strung to a pole. If you'd infected family members, you had to carry a white pole when you went out. Animals were believed to carry the disease, they're mass killed.
100,000 Londoners died in just seven months. Public entertainment was banned, victims were forcibly shut into their homes to prevent the spread of the disease. Red crosses were painted on their doors along with a plea for forgiveness: “Lord have mercy upon us.”

Cholera [19th century to the Current Age]

1817

A British doctor named John Snow suspected the disease lurked in London’s drinking water. “As soon as I became acquainted with the situation and extent of this irruption (sic) of cholera, I suspected some contamination of the water of the much-frequented street-pump in Broad Street,” he wrote.
Seven pandemics killed millions of people across all continents. It takes between 12 to 5 hours for the symptoms to show after ingesting contaminated food or water and can kill within hours if untreated.

Spanish Flu or Influenza

1918

"Infected an estimated 500 million people worldwide—about one-third of the planet’s population—and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million victims, including some 675,000 Americans."
Influenza, or flu, is a virus that attacks the respiratory system. The flu virus is highly contagious.
It impacted young adults the hardest. Half of those who died where between the age of 20-40, 99% where under the age 65.
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AIDS [1970s and early 1990s]

1970

The virus is transmitted through bodily fluids such as blood, semen, vaginal fluids, anal fluids, and breast milk. Scientists have traced the origin of HIV back to chimpanzees and simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV). HIV can destroy so many CD4 cells that the body can’t fight infections and diseases, eventually leading to the most severe form of an HIV infection.
There were approximately 37.6 million people across the globe with HIV in 2020.

SARS [21st Century] China

2003

It was first identified at the end of February 2003 during an outbreak that emerged in China and spread to 4 other countries.
It's an airborne virus and can spread through small droplets of saliva and via surfaces that have been touched by someone who is infected. It's the first severe and readily transmissible disease to emerge this century and showed its capacity to spread along the routes of international air travel.
Most patients identified were previously healthy adults aged 25–70 years.

Covid-19 [21st Century] China

2020

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) is an infectious disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Most common symptoms include fever, cough, tiredness, loss of taste or smell.
It appeared in China on December, 2020 and spread like wildfire across the globe.
It is estimated that about 5,003,259 people have died so far from the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak as of October 29, 2021 and there are currently 246,683,223 confirmed cases in 221 countries and territories.