Famine
Note: Some of these famines may be caused or partially caused by nature.
This section includes famines that were caused or exacerbated by the policies of the ruling regime.
- This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.
| Lowest estimate | Highest estimate | Event | Location | From | To | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 700715000000000000015,000,000 700720000000000000020,000,000 |
700743000000000000043,000,000 | Great Chinese Famine | People's Republic of China | 1959 | 1961 | Great Leap Forward famine under the Chinese Communist Party led by Mao Zedong. Between the spring of 1959 and the end of 1961 some 30 million Chinese starved to death and about the same number of births were lost or postponed. State violence during this period further exacerbated the death toll, and some 2.5 million people were beaten or tortured to death in connection with Great Leap policies. |
| 70069000000000000009,000,000 | 700713000000000000013,000,000 | Northern Chinese Famine of 1876–1879 | China | 1876 | 1879 | |
| 70066000000000000006,000,000 | 70068000000000000008,000,000 | Soviet famine of 1932–1933, including Holodomor |
Soviet Union | 1932 | 1939 | As of March 2008, Ukraine and nineteen other governments have recognized the actions of the Soviet government that led to mass famine as an act of genocide. The joint statement at the United Nations in 2003 has defined the famine as the result of cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs and other nationalities in the USSR. On 23 October 2008 the European Parliament adopted a resolution that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity.
On January 12, 2010, the court of appeals in Kiev opened hearings into the "fact of genocide-famine Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–33", in May 2009 the Security Service of Ukraine had started a criminal case "in relation to the genocide in Ukraine in 1932–33". In a ruling on January 13, 2010 the court found Stalin and other Bolshevik leaders guilty of genocide against the Ukrainians. |
| 70065250000000000005,250,000 | 700710300000000000010,300,000 | Great Famine of 1876–78 | British-ruled India | 1876 | 1878 | See also: Famine in India |
| 70065000000000000005,000,000 | 700710000000000000010,000,000 | Russian famine of 1921 | Soviet Russia | 1921 | 1922 | See also: Droughts and famines in Russia and the Soviet Union |
| 70064000000000000004,000,000 | 70064000000000000004,000,000 | Bengal famine of 1943 | British-ruled India | 1943 | 1943 | The Japanese conquest of Burma cut off India's main supply of rice imports
However, British administrative policies ultimately caused the massive death toll. |
| 70061250000000000001,250,000 | 700710000000000000010,000,000 | Indian famine of 1899–1900 | British-ruled India | 1899 | 1900 | See also El Niño-Southern Oscillation |
| 7005750000000000000750,000 | 70061500000000000001,500,000 | Great Irish Famine | British-ruled Ireland | 1846 | 1849 | Although blight ravaged potato crops throughout Europe during the 1840s, the impact and human cost in Ireland—where a third of the population was entirely dependent on the potato for food—was exacerbated by a host of political, social and economic factors which remain the subject of historical debate. |
Read more about this topic: List Of Wars And Anthropogenic Disasters By Death Toll
Famous quotes containing the word famine:
“He will deliver you from six troubles; in seven no harm shall touch you. In famine he will redeem you from death, and in war from the power of the sword. You shall be hidden from the scourge of the tongue, and shall not fear destruction when it comes. At destruction and famine you shall laugh, and shall not fear the wild animals of the earth. For you shall be in league with the stones of the field, and the wild animals shall be at peace with you.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Job 5:19-23.
“I knew the poor,
I knew the hideous death they die,
when famine lays its bleak hand on the door;
I knew the rich,
sated with merriment,
who yet are sad.”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“From the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”
—Charles Darwin (1809–1882)