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Related topic is the "Great Dying" which killed the majority of Native Americans: http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html http://www.pbs.org/
by nxzero 11y ago
Related topic is the "Great Dying" which killed the majority of Native Americans:
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html
Of note is how smallpox was used as a weapon:
>> "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians, by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." — Jeffery Amherst
Sources:
Disease as a weapon against Native Americans
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_epidemics https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_...
Smallpox Blankets
http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=407&Itemid=617 http://cherokeeregistry.com/index.php?option=com_content&vie...
- baldfat 11y agoI am proud to be an American but ... We used Germ Warfare to a whole new level vs Native Americans. (Germ warfare was used throughout history AKA throwing dead things into fortifications etc) We are the only country to have used Nuclear Weapons But in terms of killing nothing compares to Mosquitoes with them spreading malaria, dengue and yellow fever. Malaria kills 2,700,000 a year.
- nxzero 11y agoBiowarfare has a long history: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfare https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_biological_warfar... Some believe that dead bodies infected with the black plague were catapulted over the walls in the siege of Kaffe.
- jqm 11y agoI live in the US but I'm not taking credit for the smallpox thing. That was the doing of a few people at most, and I'm not one of them. I don't think it was even official policy, so my great grandfathers vote can't be implicated either. I get very tired of the collective American guilt trip. I don't see how it does anyone any good.
- cloudjacker 11y agoWhat collective American guilt trip
- baldfat 11y agoOr the collective not my issue I wasn't alive pass the buck. So what I got a full deck of cards and you got less. It wasn't my system so deal with it and don't make me own my advantage.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoIt's possible to affect positive change without being burdened by personal or historical guilt.
- baldfat 11y agoYeah that worked so well US certainly doesn't have people caring about our past and trying to kill us.
- pavel_lishin 11y agoIf you want everyone to love you, be a kitten. There isn't a country or a demographic in the world that isn't hated by someone.
- baldfat 11y agoSwitzerland? New Zealand?
- pavel_lishin 11y ago> Switzerland? I'd wager that some people are pretty unhappy with their behavior during World War II. > New Zealand? I've got nothin'.
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
- Chathamization 11y agoOutside of the siege of Ft. Pitt (where most seem to consider the attempt ineffective), when else was germ warfare tried in the colonies/USA?
- knz 11y agoRe nuclear weapons - the context matters. There were predictions of over 1M allied casualties for an invasion of the Japanese mainland and after the bitter fighting during previous campaigns it seems plausible. https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-United-States-attack-Japan-with-2-atomic-bombs https://www.quora.com/Why-did-the-United-States-attack-Japan... has a great summary of the other factors (Total war, an unwillingness by the Japanese military to surrender, the context of nuclear vs conventional bombing, speculation about future conflicts).
- iSnow 11y agoYou really should read the debate about the bombing: - https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-japan-stalin-did/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2013/05/30/the-bomb-didnt-beat-jap... - http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-05/hiroshima-bombing-did-not-lead-japanese-surrender-anniversary/6672616 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-08-05/hiroshima-bombing-did-... Also, the poster above stated a simple fact: no other country has ever used nukes in anger. I don't think it's necessary to contextualize this simple statement.
- knz 11y agoI'm familiar with it. Personally I don't see any clear or compelling evidence that the bombings did not play a role in ending the war. It's not as if the Allied Commanders had direct access to the inner circle of Japanese leaders at the time. History is never as black and white as some may portray it - I don't doubt that there were many complex reasons for the decision to use the bombs and the decision made by the Japanese to surrender. Personally, I also think it's a bit ridiculous to be ashamed of the fact that the US dropped two nuclear weapons as part of ending a global war. These were primitive weapons compared to what is available now. Were they any worse than the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden? Any worse than the atrocities in Nanking? Worse than the Holocaust or actions of the Einsatzgruppen? What about the Katyn Forest? Comfort Women? The treatment of POWs? WW2 was full of horrible events that every nation could be ashamed of but let's not forget the context of the conflict and who the aggressors were.
- Someone 11y agoDon't blame the mosquitoes for that. They don't know they are killing the source they 'milk' for food.
- lifeformed 11y agoI don't think it's fair to group the nuclear attacks with smallpox warfare. They were done for extremely different reasons.
- rmc 11y ago1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus by Charles C Mann is a great book about the Americas before Columbus (who arrived in 1492). One of the things it covers (with evidence), is the disease outbreak which killed millions and millions of people. He's a pop-sci author, so it's half a history book and half a science book ("We know this because of these historical documents, and then because of this scientific evidence)
- patsplat 11y agoThat and 1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created are great reads. One of the main points of 1491 was the evidence of disease decimating the Americas even prior to the arrival of Cortes.
- ChuckMcM 11y agoStories like this were one of the most interesting things I learned with home schooling. When you are bringing information to your kids to teach them about history, you want it to be accurate so, if you are like me, you try to find a number of sources about major events. And what I discovered was how these events are slanted, sometimes radically so, in service to a particular narrative. Of the few things we found that were pretty universal, one was that a lot of people died from disease, before, during, and after people from Europe were visiting the American continents (both North and South), and upper class Europeans were often unashamedly racists and classists. The origin of these appear to be the lack of understanding about diseases (transmission and virality) and our inability to proactively protect ourselves (vaccinate). And the history of feudal warlords favoring 'bloodlines' over individual competence. Often looking at events from the present, with the benefit if hindsight and greater knowledge, its easy to see how things could have been avoided and so it is easy to believe that they weren't avoided due to malice. And taking advantage of that, a number of historians have painted events to look like either malice of their enemies or heroism of their allies, rather than a dispassionate retelling of facts and figures. Even today we see tragic events quickly contextualized into a conspiracy of shadowy groups with malicious agendas. when those re-contextualized accounts become the only surviving account, we lose a lot of perspective.
- YeGoblynQueenne 11y ago
- Retric 11y agoBoth of these are minor compared to Smallpox. Smallpox is 10,000+ years old was responsible for an estimated 300–500 million deaths during the 20th century alone. It killed between 20–60 percent of those infected and and over 80 percent of infected children. It caused lifetime issues for ~85% of the survivors including ~1/3 of all historical cases of blindness. As recently as 1967, the World Health Organization estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year. Highlights include the epidemic of 735–737 is believed to have killed as much as one-third of the population. At least seven religious deities have been specifically dedicated to smallpox. By the mid-18th century smallpox was a major endemic disease everywhere in the world except in Australia and in several small islands. In Europe smallpox was a leading cause of death in the 18th century, killing an estimated 400,000 Europeans each year, including five kings. Up to 10 percent of Swedish infants died of smallpox each year,[10] and the death rate of infants in Russia may have been even higher. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smallpox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_smallpox
- brianwawok 11y agoDid not realize the depth of this. I guess I now understand why Europeans had decent immunity to it.. it was that or die.
- encoderer 11y agoStarting in the 18th century, people began inoculating themselves in large numbers. You'd do this with pus from a victim who had a mild case of it.
- curtis 11y agoThe Wikipedia article on variolation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Variolation) is pretty interesting. Edward Jenner's development of Smallpox vaccination seemed much less revolutionary to me once I learned about Smallpox inoculation/variolation.