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How much do you think about death? We’ve all lost loved ones. Some of our losses have been more devastating than others. But what about death in the grand scale?

Our friends at Wait But Why put together this amazing infographic that gives a solid visual of the scale of death on a grand scale — and they very generously gave us permission to reprint it at Liberal America.

From Wait But Why:

But for a crowd so interested in death, humans know surprisingly little about the actual numbers of people that died in key moments throughout history. Most of us know that 3,000 people died on 9/11, but how many Americans know how many Katrina victims there were, or how many people died in the American Revolution. Did the Christian Crusades kill 100 times as many people as the Vietnam War? Or were they identical in their death tolls? Given how much we talk about historical human tragedies, it seems like something we should have a better handle on. So let’s take a look.



Notes about their methodology:

– All circles are exactly proportional to the numbers they’re representing and to the other circles in the graphic. Note the scale, and how it changes as the numbers grow.

– I focused on human tragedies of various kinds, but sprinkled normal death statistics (the gray circles) throughout as comparison points to help put things in perspective.

– I tried to maintain integrity in my research. ?There are many ?sources? citing various death tolls online?so I made sure there was a reasonable consensus for all the numbers below. ?When there were too many differing opinions (like Howard Zinn saying European Colonialism killed 100 million people, with other sources saying it was 2 million), I left it out. ?Sometimes, there is genuine uncertainty to the exact death toll in an event, but a consensus about the lower and upper bound that the death toll might be. ?In those cases, I made the upper bound a big, faded circle, and the lower bound a smaller, brighter circle inside. ?For example, the total number of lucky people who had their hearts cut out and sacrificed by the Aztecs is unknown. ?But historians are pretty sure that the number is somewhere between 300,000 and 1,500,000. ?So I represented that like this, with two circles:

Let us know your thoughts at the Liberal America Facebook page.

Tiffany Willis is the founder and editor-in-chief of Liberal America. An unapologetic member of the Christian Left, she has spent most of her career actively working with ?the least of these? and disadvantaged and oppressed populations. She’s passionate about their struggles. To stay on top of topics she discusses,?like her?Facebook page,?follow her on Twitter, or?connect with her via LinkedIn. She also has?a?grossly neglected personal blog?and a?literary quotes blog that is a labor of love. Find her somewhere and join the discussion.