Greatest Man-made Tragedy in History -- Nominations

[Lunar]

Give 1-5 nominations for what should be considered the worst event in human history.

It's man-made so no plagues.

I'll do a poll later if not too many people respond by gathering up their torches.

And it'll be far more fun if you actually cite some history if it's an obscure item (not the Holocaust).  At least quote the wikipedia article and give some statistics

It can be a prolonged event, like American slavery, or a single-day massacre.  I'm not really sure what the maximum time frame should be, but the event probably shouldn't be "racism."

[Lunar]

     SPC took most of the good ones, so I'll nominate the Congo Free State, where between 1876 & 1909 10 million native Congolese were killed by the hired thugs of King Leopold II of Belgium.

The "good ones," oh I can't not appreciate the irony I created

Anyway, SPC missed a lot of tragedies.  Slavery, Various Genocides, WW2, etc.

[Lunar]

     SPC took most of the good ones, so I'll nominate the Congo Free State, where between 1876 & 1909 10 million native Congolese were killed by the hired thugs of King Leopold II of Belgium.

The "good ones," oh I can't not appreciate the irony I created

Anyway, SPC missed a lot of tragedies.  Slavery, Various Genocides, WW2, etc.

I skipped WW2 because Lunar sort of implied that we should exclude that. I thought WWI was a good nominee because it leads to everything else, civilian deaths in war, the Russian Revolution, the Holomodor, the Holocaust, WWII, instability in the Middle East and Balkans, etc.

Another good nominee would be the Cultural Revolution, which in of itself killed more people than any other event.

Really?  I really encourage modern events.

I am more interested in pre-modern events from history buffs (so I can learn about stuff I hadn't hear of before), but I think the World War(s) should absolutely be in contention.  Like, as bad as Operation Keelhaul is, no way in hell is it in the same league as the Holocaust.

[Lunar]

Taiping Rebellion, hands down. 20 million died because some guy claimed he was the son of God and people didn't like it.

That's because of the collapse of Manchu legitimacy, "God's Son" just filled in that gap around a revolution always centres . A peasant revolt of sorts would have happened anyway (though its likely it either would have a) succeeded; as it was "god's son" delusions that lay behind the defeat of the Taipings and b) defeated more easily. Either way, less people would have died)

There is only one answer:

The Discovery of America and the Spanish Empire in the Americas.

That wasn't really man-made since disease killed most of them... but I suppose the act of shipping the disease over... hmm

[Lunar]

Interesting that you cite industrialization, Jared Diamond argues that agriculturalization was the worst event in history in terms of damage to populations.  It was agriculture that created overpopulation, that switched omnivorous diets to unhealthy staple crops, and that allowed for settlement and thus oppression.  I'm not sure if that or industrialization count as "events" though.

I made this thread seriously expecting you to come attacking me for having a tragedy contest Sibboleth, kind of surprised

[Lunar]

The Discovery of America

Inevitable events don't count here.

Well, I think something being inevitable makes it less tragic.

I'm still not sure if industrialization is a man-made "event"

[Lunar]

emphasis on event.

[Lunar]

Not a singular event, but we can talk about it as a whole in hindsight.

I mean, can we?

Isn't it still going on? 

[Lunar]

That's not an event sillybear

[Lunar]

This isn't even close, its the one that's claimed 40+ million lives

Abortion

As horrific as that is for a pro-lifer, wouldn't events that involved more brutality and greater deaths be better contenders?

     WWII, for instance.

No, I strongly disagree with this statement.  While I disagree with America involving itself in the war, the war was aimed to stop a brutual tyrant.  Abortion is the greatest tragedy because 100% of those deaths are preventable and senseless

"Give 1-5 nominations for what should be considered the worst event in human history."