This article is about the 8 deadliest days in US history. Many things have happened in the United States of America over the years. Some are bad and some are worse, but we are here to show you the deadliest ones and their dates. The country has been in existence for over 200 years and has experienced different kinds of catastrophes, both man-made and natural disasters. Let’s get to see some of them.
8 deadliest days in US history
COVID-19 Pandemic (400,000 plus deaths and still counting)
It all began in December in the year 2019 in China before it founded its way to the US in January 2020. COVID-19 is a virus that affects the respiratory system, though the disease has spread across the entire world the US is the highest affected country so far. They already have more than 25 million people that have tested positive for the virus.
1918 Flu Pandemic
As the COVID-19 is still on this makes us remember what occurred a little over 100 years ago. Though it’s called the Spanish Flu it lasted between February 1918 to April 1920. The first case was a U.S. Army cook stationed in Kansa in March 1918. It was called Spanish flu because of reporters who reported Spain as being the worst hit. Over 20 million people lost their lives and more than 500,000 died from the pandemic. The worst-hit was between September–December 1918 where about 290,000 died.
Terrorist Attack on September 2001 (2,977 victims + 19 Al-Qaeda terrorists died)
The day came like any other day in the United States of America, everyone went on their normal business as usual. In the morning hours, around 8:46 am on September 11, the North Tower of the World Trade Center in New York City experienced the first hijacked commercial airliner slam into it. As people were trying to know what’s going on with black smoke everywhere, the south tower section of the building got a terrific explosion when the second plane crashed into it. As time went by, the Pentagon was also attacked and flight 93 crash that was also hijacked by 4 al-Qaeda terrorists on board. These events were so disastrous that about 4,000 firefighters and the first people that came to help have died from cancer.
Pearl Harbor Attack
On December 7, 1941, it came as a shock on a Sunday morning when the Imperial Japanese Navy Aircraft numbering about 353 attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor in Honolulu, Territory of Hawaii. These attacks damaged eight U.S. Navy battleships, 188 U.S. aircraft; 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 others were wounded. These attacks led the United States into World War II the next day. These event made us to add it to our 8 deadliest days in US history.
World War 1
People who are not conversant with history wouldn’t know that the United States suffered a lot of casualties in World War 1. Originally, they were not involved in the war that was only fought in Europe. The war started in Europe in 1914, then in 1915, the German torpedoes sank the passenger ship Lusitania in which about 120 Americans lost their lives. The United States declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917. These didn’t go well for the soldiers numbering hundreds of thousands deployed to fight the Germans. About 116,516 soldiers lost their lives.
San Francisco Earthquake and Fire
On April 18, 1906, on Wednesday early morning around 5 a.m, an earthquake occurred at the coast of Northern California. This lasted for about 45 to 60 seconds, buildings fell like they didn’t have any foundation. What baffled people was what followed after the earthquake, fire broke out. These fires burned for about four days, and about 3,000 people lost their lives.
At the end of it, an estimated number of 200,000 people were homeless. These fires were caused by ruptured gas mains, and they destroyed up to 25,000 buildings.
HIV/AIDS Epidemic
Today we have normalized the HIV issue and people now live with it and manage their lives with certain drugs and a good diet. Years back, it wasn’t like that, things were a bit different. About 40 years ago, in 1981 precisely, there were reports from medical doctors about weird pneumonia and also cancer-related diseases which were later identified as AIDS by the Center for disease control (CDC).
The virus causing this was later known as HIV (human immunodeficiency virus) which caused rapid weight loss, painful sores, and many other diseases. About 50,000 Americans lost their lives in 1995 from this virus.
US Civil War
You might not be aware of this, the United States suffered a setback after a devastating civil war that lasted for four years and 27 days between April 12, 1861 – May 9, 1865. At that time the war occurred due to the enslavement of black people in the southern states. The fight was between the northern states and southern states in which the two areas were loyal to the union and the Confederate States of America. About 600,000 to 1 million people lost their lives. That’s our list of the 8 deadliest days in US history.