Saber-tooth tigers, meteorites, mushrooms… you name it, and someone somewhere at some point
has probably gotten killed by it. But – spoiler alert – most people WEREN'T killed by sabertooths
or meteorites. About 110 billion people have died throughout human history for millions
of different reasons. Some things, though, have killed a lot more people than others,
so we’re going to take a historical tour of human death and highlight how the common causes
of death changed over time…or didn’t. Hi, I’m David and this is MinuteEarth.
Before we take that tour, we should probably note that it’s super hard to quantify who died
of what way back when; until recently, humans didn’t really keep death records,
and it can be hard – even today – to determine what actually killed a person. But by putting
together a bunch of disparate information, scientists and historians have been able
to make some pretty educated guesses about the most common causes of death throughout history.
Ok, with that out of the way, let’s start with the prehistory era, during which
about 10 billion people lived…and died. These hunters and gatherers lived rough-and-tumble
lives without any real sanitation, so a lot of them died from injuries, infected wounds,
and parasites. Then there were also three other big killers…which we’ll get to a bit later.
Next was the agricultural era during which another 60 billion-ish people lived and died. Living with
livestock caused deaths from animal-borne diseases like smallpox and tuberculosis and reliance
on crops caused deaths from mass starvation when crops failed. And since sanitation hadn’t improved
much, people kept dying from a wide variety of infections and parasites. And – oh yeah – there
were those three other killers that were still killing people, which, again, we’ll get to.
During the third era, the urbanization and trade era, another 30 billion or so people lived and
died. The beginnings of global travel brought unfamiliar diseases like the measles and flu to
new lands, decimating entire civilizations. And since people lived more tightly packed than ever,
plagues like, well, the Plague spread quickly. Plus, other infections and parasites ran rampant,
especially tuberculosis. And there were those three other killers that
were still at it, which we’ll get to soon. In the current era, another 10 billion or
so people have died… but mostly from different things. Thanks to widespread use of stuff like
soap, vaccines, and antibiotics, we've gotten really good at not dying from most of the
threats that haunted earlier eras. Now, things like heart disease and cancer – diseases which
tend to kill old people – have become common causes of death. Unfortunately,
those three big killers are still an issue. Oh right, now let’s get to those three killers,
which have been on a spree since the dawn of humanity and have likely dispatched more
people than anything else. The first is other humans; researchers estimate that violence and
wars have killed around three billion people throughout history. In some ancient cultures,
they were responsible for more than half the deaths, and while things are a lot better today,
violence still kills around a million people each year worldwide.
Then there’s childbirth, which has killed more than 5 billion women throughout history,
mostly from bleeding and other complications. In some particularly grim eras, more than 25%
of women giving birth likely died. Nowadays, because many babies are born in modern hospitals
under trained supervision, far fewer women die during childbirth, but the number is still
shockingly high – around 300,000 each year. Finally, what’s likely the biggest,
baddest killer: malaria. We know from ancient writings and anti-malarial adaptations deep in
the human genome that malaria has been killing people since day one. Advances in prevention
and treatments have brought the death rate way down, but the disease still causes more
than half a million deaths each year. By some estimates, over the course of history,
the malaria parasite has killed more than 10 billion people – in other words, one tiny bug
has killed roughly 10 percent of all the humans who ever lived. Take that, saber-tooth tigers.
Humans are getting a lot better at fighting off many of history’s biggest killers,
and nonprofits and charities are a big part of the reason why – but it’s tough to know
which ones are the most effective. That’s where Givewell comes in. They spend tens
of thousands of hours each year evaluating charities, so they can direct funding to the
ones with the highest impact. This year, two of its top picks are organizations that fight
malaria – one provides anti-malarial medication for kids and the other provides bed nets to
keep the mosquitos away. Join me in supporting both of these awesome organizations by going
to GiveWell.org/minuteearth and directing your donation to the Top Charities fund. Right now,
you can have your donation matched up to a hundred dollars; get started at GiveWell.org/minuteearth