| | Year* | Place | Event |
| | 3180 B.C. | Egypt | First recorded epidemic: “A great pestilence” during the reign of Pharaoh Mempses in the First Dynasty was the first recorded epidemic in human history [7, 9]. |
| | 1495 B.C. | Egypt | “The Plague of Pharaoh”, possibly caused by drought [7, 10]. |
| | 1471 B.C. | Kadesh | A plague causing 14700 deaths, possibly caused by earthquake [7, 9]. |
| | 1190 B.C. | Greece | A loimos (Greek, meaning a plague or pestilence), now believed to be a bubonic plague, possibly caused by the Trojan War (1194–1184 B.C.) [7, 9]. |
| | 1017 B.C. | Israel | A pestilence lasing “3 days”, causing 70000 deaths [7, 9]. |
| | 431 B.C.– 427 B.C. | Aethiopia, then spread to Egypt, the Persian Empire, and Athens | “The Plaque of Thucydides”, now believed to be typhus and measles, possibly caused by the Peloponnesian War (432–411 B.C.) [7, 9]. |
| | A.D. 166 | Rome | Possibly smallpox, spread by soldiers returning from the Parthian War (A.D. 161–166) [7, 11]. |
| | 541–549 | Constantinople, then spread to Egypt and the whole populated world | First of three most devastating epidemics to hit the human race [9]: “The Plague of Justinian” [7, 9]. |
| | 664–689 | England | “The Yellow Plague”, now believed to be relapsing fever with jaundice, causing death of “a great multitude of men” [7, 9]. |
| | 1348–1351 | Central Asia, then spread east to China, south to India, west to Portugal, north to England (1349), Norway (1350), and Russia (1351) | Second of three most devastating epidemics to hit the human race [9]: “The Black Death”, now believed to be bubonic plague, with “thousands died everyday”, possibly caused by contaminated ships following the trade routes [7, 9]. Quarantine was used to detain travelers from infected areas [12]. |
| | 1374–17th century | Germany (1374), then spread to France (1518) and Italy (17th century) | “Dancing Mania”, possibly caused by mass psychogenic disorder and/or the bite of a spider [7, 9]. |
| | 1665 | London | “The Great Plague of London”, caused by poor sanitary conditions, dense population, and overcrowded housing. The epidemic was ended by natural interventions, with winter frosts, and the “Great Fire of London” in 1666 that destroyed and cleansed the neighbourhoods [7, 9]. |
| | 1817–1875 | Calcutta (1817), all of India (1821), China (1820), Japan (1822), Russia (1823), England (1831), Canada and the USA (1832), Africa (1837), Central America (1863), and South America (1875) | Four pandemics of cholera (1817–1823; 1826–1837; 1846–1863; 1863–1875), caused by steamboats and mass migration during the Industrial Revolution [7, 9]. In 1849, John Snow mapped cholera cases in London and found contaminated water from the Broad Street pump. Snow removed the pump handle in 1854 and the epidemic waned [13]. |
| | 1918 | France (April), England (June), China (July), and USA (August) | Third of three most devastating epidemics to hit the human race [9]: “Spanish Influenza”, caused by a virus [7, 14]. The disease killed 22 million people, about twice as many as the 10 million deaths caused by World War I (1914–1918) [14]. The virus was isolated in 1933, and its vaccine was developed in 1972 [9]. Facemasks and hand washing have been suggested for preventing the spread of influenza [15]. |
| | 1940–now | Worldwide | Lung cancer epidemic, caused by cigarette smoking [7, 16, 17]. In the decade 1990–1999, a total of 6.6 million attributable deaths worldwide [18, 19]. |
| | 1997–now | Worldwide | Obesity epidemic, caused by a combination of excess food intake, lack of physical activity, and genetic susceptibility [20, 21]. Before the 20th century, obesity was rare [22]. In 1997 the World Health Organization formally recognized obesity as a global epidemic [23]. World Health Organization estimates that 1.4 billion adults are overweight or obese, and 2.8 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese [24]. |
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