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Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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There are reliable lists availble. Honestly I would have gotten only 1 of the top 3 correct, and not the right ranking.
WW2 is in the top 3. Any guesses and answers and the world's deadliest wars in history? Both total numbers killed and percent of the world population.
Hint: most historians consider the deadliest war to have kill +/- 10% of the world population with an army of no more than several hundred thousand warriors.
This is really difficult unless we really define the criteria. For instance, by total number killed? By percent of world population? What constitutes a war? Is it a period of warfare/campaigning stretching over decades/centuries that may or may not contain multiple smaller "wars"? Are we only counting deaths directly attributable to the war itself, or everything during that time period (for instance WW1 + Spanish Flu)? Most wars have wide ranging estimates of death, are we taking the high, low or average estimates?
In terms of sheer number killed, the Taiping Rebellion in China, WW2 and WW1, in order, are usually listed as the worst three. That is followed by a whole bunch of other wars in China and things like the Thirty Year's War, Russian Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars don't even make the top 10.
When done by percent of population killed, it's all about China and the Mongols. The Mongol Invasion I believe is number one by percentage and then the Lushan Rebellion in China. Both purportedly wiped out between 15%-17% of the worlds population.
As NJGOAT eluded to, 40million plus were killed in the Taiping Rebellion, almost every citizen of Tianjing and that part of China was given military training and had to fight.
Some of these "lists" are funny, and might include centuries of Armed conflicts like The Mongol Invasions or the Golden Hordes. Also when we go that far back we are talking about very rough estimates...and of course the question of military vs. civilian deaths....and if you include civilian deaths, how to connect the innumerable fatalities from desiese and famine and relocation that usually accompanied wars and continued for decades after the end of hostilities.
But there are a bunch of Chinese rebellions, dynasty changes, etc, from that area of the world that certainly will make that list.
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