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Well, I would say no, since there were multiple famines since then. 1) Post-WW2, most of the Eastern Hemisphere experienced famine and underemployment for a de
by redis_mlc 7y ago
Well, I would say no, since there were multiple famines since then.
1) Post-WW2, most of the Eastern Hemisphere experienced famine and underemployment for a decade. (Britain had food ration coupons for 9 years afterwards.)
2) The Cold War was pretty scary and greatly impoverished the Eastern Bloc, Cuba, N. Vietnam and N. Korea. China had the Great Famine from 1959 - 1961, killing "tens of millions."
4) Polio was a scourge until vaccines were developed: 2 to 5 percent of children and up to 15 to 30 percent of adults die
5) USA has a serious crack and meth epidemic, and Russia lost a lot of men to vodka poisoning.
We'll see about Covid-19, but the next famine will dwarf it by 10x or 20x in total fatalities.
- rapsey 7y agoSounds cruel but famines are localised suffering that have little effect on the rest of the world. Of course if you measure deaths it is not anywhere close to anything. If you measure global life impact it is surpassing everything since ww2.
- redis_mlc 7y agoI suggest you read my comment again. Famine due to global warfare is not localized, and each one listed had tens of millions of fatalities.
- Dylan16807 7y agoPolio, drugs, and >40 years of Cold War fail the "event" part of "world event" The Great Famine fails the "world" part. Your first item is sort of arguable, but I'd say it's half not an event, and half not independent enough of WW2 to count.