The 20 deadliest events in human history, from Matthew White’s website . For more, see White’s new book, .
White’s numbers are scary enough, but in his book The Better Angels of our Nature, Steven Pinker has extrapolated them to today’s population. This was done by finding the per-capita death rate at the midpoint of the event’s range of years, based on .
The chart below shows slightly updated values for the events than those used in Pinker’s books.
This chart is interactive – click it to explore the data. To sort, select the axis and click the sort icon on the menu below.
Read more: “Steven Pinker says humans are less violent than ever“
