bignums

updated: 2003-02-07

(This file is about physical objects that are very large or very small in some quantifiable way. If you are looking for so-called "bignums" mathematical packages for calculating pi to umpty-million places, factoring large integers, etc., look at linux.html#tech or Challenge to_program.html#programmers_challenge or BigInt unsigned integer math library for VB.NET )

I enjoy interesting ``order of magnitude'', ``back of the envelope'' calculations (``Feynman challenges'' ?). For example, "What fraction of Earth's surface needs to be covered in average-efficiency solar cells, to generate enough power for the average American lifestyle ? Do we already use more (stored fossil) energy in a year than falls in sunlight in a year ?" #solar_power

contents:

people

large numbers of people.

DAV likes to start every analysis with "everything". In the case of humans,

Given these 2 numbers, that leads to the conclusion that about 1/15 of all the people who have ever lived are still alive today. -- DAV.

``The Mortality Myth'' http://www.lucifer.com/~sean/BT/18andhalf.html#mortality

time

times

length, size, and distance

mass

morbidity

I feel that all human life is sacred. Every death is a tragedy.

Still, I think it's useful to track of what sorts of things cause the most deaths, so I can focus my limited time and energy appropriately.

morbidity data ; mortality data.

[FIXME: should I move this data to Wikipedia: List of wars and disasters by death toll ?]

DAV: the data I've collected in this table supports "Safe, Fun-To-Drive Automobiles" by by Karl Pfleger 2002 http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/kpfleger/auto/ when he says that The biggest danger of death or severe injury for most Americans comes from motor vehicles. ... Statistically this danger completely overwhelms the threats posed by terrorist bombs, anthrax, and the like. Though these more sensational topics receive vastly more media attention, the average person could prevent deaths and injuries far better by devoting attention to auto safety.

[FIXME: read the rest of "Health and Safety Consumer Information" by Karl Pfleger http://www.ksl.stanford.edu/people/kpfleger/consumer/ ]

[FIXME: add the numbers from "Annual Causes of Death in the United States" http://drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm to this table ]

numbers in this table are generally rounded to 2 significant figures. [I used to use standard SI notation si_metric_faq.html#si to express the appallingly large numbers in this table. Not any more. ]

Here I'm trying to focus on historical events where real humans died. Should I add some links to possible future events that, while at the moment hypothetical, could lead to the death of many or perhaps all humans ? "Existential Risks: Analyzing Human Extinction Scenarios and Related Hazards" paper by Dr. Nick Bostrom http://www.jetpress.org/volume9/risks.html [FIXME: finish reading]

If there are any errors in this table, or you can help me fill in the blank spots, please give me the correct information via email d.cary@ieee.org. or web feedback feedback.html .

[FIXME: what order should I list this data ? chronologically; worst-killers-first, or what ?] [FIXME: how to distinguish between ongoing killers (deaths/year), versus things that are (I hope) over and done with ? ] [FIXME: How to make more obvious the heirarchial order of some of these entries ?

]

[FIXME: include stats from Tracey O. http://www.teacheroz.com/wwi.htm ]

Some of these numbers are rough guesses. Please tell me if you find more accurate numbers.

... "There were about 30,000 people in the towers when they were struck and most of them got out safely." http://denbeste.nu/entries/00000878.shtml
killed year cause
[ how many ???] the Soviet purges "pogroms"
[ how many ???] 1095 to 1270 The Crusades christlib.html#crusades
[ how many ???] "More people are killed annually by donkeys than die in air crashes." http://www.raptureme.com/humor/hb4.html [FIXME: yes, but what are the actual numbers ?]
[ how many ???] [FIXME: ] _The long road to recovery: Community responses to industrial disaster_ book edited by James K. Mitchell 1996 http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu21le/uu21le00.htm#Contents discusses Minamata disease (methyl mercury poisoning), the Bhopal crisis, The Chernobyl disasters, ... [FIXME: split up into individual disasters ?]
300,000,000 1900-1999 smallpox: "It's no exaggeration to say that the smallpox vaccine is one of humanity's greatest achievements. In the 20th century alone, smallpox killed more than 300 million people, three times as many as were killed in all the wars of that century combined. Prior to that, the disease killed untold millions, slaughtering kings and commoners alike and changing the course of history" -- [need reference]
25,000,000 1918-1919 the influenza pandemic of 1918 "WWI had just ended, claiming 9 M men in 4 years; the "Spanish Flu" killed 25 M people in 18 months of 1918 to 1919 ... history's worst plague -- for largest number of people dead in the shortest time .... America, with "only" 850 000 deaths was among the areas least devastated ..." -- ??? ``the very scourge that had caused nations to establish infectious disease control agencies'' -- ??? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_flu
25 000 000 1347-1350 The Black Death (sometimes called the Black Plague) "Approximately 25 million deaths occurred in Europe alone, with many others occurring in northern Africa, the Middle East and Asia." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death
22,000,000 (?) "22.5 million people in sub-Saharan Africa are currently infected with HIV and are expected to die within the next 10 years ... Over the next decade, deaths from HIV in sub-Saharan Africa are expected to surpass the deaths of combatants in all the major wars of the 20th century combined." -- ??
20,000,000 1939-1945 World War II (WWII)
16 000 000 1914-1918 World War I (WWI)

8,000,000 . . . Est. civilians killed in Great War: Non-influenza 8,300,000 . . . . . . . Estimated combatants killed, all nations ... 21,500,000 . . . . Min. deaths in 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic

-- http://www.worldwar1.com/sfnum.htm "The Great War"

10 000 000 per year "...by 2030, current smoking patterns will produce about 500 million premature deaths from tobacco-related disease among people alive today... by 2030, tobacco is expected to be the single greatest cause of death worldwide, accounting for an estimated 10 million deaths per year." -- http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1023898043312CVD_stats.pdf
10 000 000/year 1996 World Hunger Today ... In 1996, a World Food Summit ... findings ... An estimated 10 million persons are reported to die every year from hunger or hunger-related causes. -- http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/after.htm
7 300 000/year 2000 ? heart disease

cardiovascular disease is the leading killer of both men and women. -- http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/new/press/01-09-10.htm

almost half of the people who have heart attacks die of their first heart attack -- http://www.heartinfo.org/search/display.asp?ID=451#9

1 in 28 women will die of breast cancer in their lifetime. One in two will die from heart disease. -- http://www.s2mw.com/simplesolutions/

Risk Assessment http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3003499

43.3 percent of all female deaths in America and most developed countries occur from CVD (Cardiovascular disease) http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=2876

Cardiovascular diseases rank as America's No. 1 killer, claiming the lives of over 40 percent of the nearly 2.4 million Americans who die each year. Cancer follows, killing 23 percent. All other causes of death account for about 37 percent.

-- http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1014991567713AfAmHtFct.pdf

... around the globe ... In 1998 there were 7.3 million deaths from heart attack and 5.1 million from stroke.

... In 1999 CVD (cardiovascular disease) contributed to one-third of global deaths. ...

"International Cardiovascular Disease Statistics" fact sheet for 2002 http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=711 | http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1023898043312CVD_stats.pdf

CVD claimed 39.4 percent of all deaths or 1 of every 2.5 deaths in the United States in 2000. CVD was about 60 percent of total mention mortality. This means that of over 2,400,000 deaths from all causes, CVD was listed as a primary or contributing cause on about 1,415,000 death certificates. * Since 1900, CVD has been the No. 1 killer in the United States every year but 1918. ...

Other causes of death in 2000 -- cancer 553,091; accidents 97,900; Alzheimer's disease 49,558; HIV (AIDS) 14,478. ... Breast cancer claimed the lives of 41,872 females in 2000; lung cancer claimed 65,052. ... Leading Causes of Death for All Males and Females United States: 2000

[paraphrased: 440,175 U.S. males died from some kind of CVD in 2000 505,661 U.S. females died from some kind of CVD in 2000 286,082 U.S. males died from some kind of cancer in 2000 267,009 U.S. females died from some kind of cancer in 2000 63,817 U.S. males died from some kind of accidents in 2000 62,005 U.S. females died from some kind of accidents in 2000 515,204 people in the U.S. died of cononary heart disease in 2000 ]

... [paraphrased 64 769 U.S. males died from stroke in 2000 102 892 U.S. females died from stroke in 2000 ]

... From 1995 to 1999, an average of 442,398 Americans died each year of smoking-related illnesses. ...

American Heart Association. Heart Disease and Stroke Statistics -- 2003 Update. Dallas TX: American Heart Association; 2002. http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=1928 | http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1040391091015HDS_Stats_03.pdf

[FIXME: simplify; add new lines for some of the "other" causes listed]

12,000,000 1941-1944

The Holocaust was the effort of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Germany to exterminate the Jews and other people that they considered to be inferior. As a result about 12,000,000 people - about half of them Jews - were murdered. ...

The Nazis targeted many groups for persecution -- among them Catholics, Poles, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, Communists -- but only three groups were targeted for systematic extermination: Jews, the handicapped, and the Sinti and Roma (often known as Gypsies).

-- http://www.holocaust-history.org/short-essays/general.shtml (book recommendations)
7,000,000 1932-1933 Stalin's Forced Famine: genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/
6,000,000 1938-1945 Nazi Holocaust: genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/ the Nazi ``final solution''

... There were about eleven million Jews in Europe in 1937 ... ... there were eleven million Jews in occupied Europe in 1942 ... ... In total, 1.1 million to 1.5 million people were killed at Auschwitz and their bodies incinerated. ... Total number of Jews killed 5,721,500 ... [by the end of the war in 1945] -- "Questions & Answers About the Holocaust" http://www.nizkor.org/qar-complete.cgi

(This is limited to the numbers of Jews killed -- it doesn't include Gypsies, Soviet POWs, dissidents, and others)

3,000,000/year 2000 ``Malaria has long been a scourge -- particularly of children -- in the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, India and nearly all of sub-Saharan Africa. Each year, it kills between 1.5 million and 3 million people around the world and 95 percent of the deaths occur in infants and young children. The mysterious re-emergence of the disease in the highlands of East Africa after a six-decade hiatus has baffled researchers since the first new cases were reported in 1988. Since then, malaria, which has caused thousands of deaths in a region that had been free of it, has become one of the area's two biggest infectious-disease killers. AIDS is the other.'' -- http://unisci.com/stories/20013/0831015.htm
2,100,000 (?) Vietnam War
2,000,000 1975-1979 Pol Pot in Cambodia: genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/ the "killing fields" of Cambodia
1,500,000 Korean War
1,500,000 1845-1850 Irish Potato Famine ... British Census Commissioners in 1841 had declared the population of Ireland to be 8,175,124. ... During the Famine years, 1845-50, Ireland's population declined in the millions ... about ... 1,500,000 having died from the effects of the famine ... Continued emigration combined with a lowered birth rate resulted in a steady decline of Ireland's population until the 1960s when it leveled off at about four million. -- http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/famine/after.htm
1,500,000 1915-1918 Armenians in Turkey: genocide: The Turkish massacre of the Armenians -- http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/
1,100,000 / year 2000 ``1.1 million worldwide ... lung cancer is the most common cancer in the world, but the number of cases could be dramatically reduced if more people gave up smoking.'' http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/health/newsid_1517000/1517668.stm
800,000 1994 Rwanda genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/ the Hutu-Tutsi massacres in Rwanda
610 000 1861 - 1865 Union Statistics: 360,000 killed in action or died of disease Confederate Statistics: 250,000 killed in action or died of disease -- http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/map1.html
600,000 1942-1945 "[When] Air Marshall Arthur Harris ... became head of RAF Bomber Command in February 1942, he introduced a policy of area bombing (known in Germany as terror bombing) where entire cities and towns were targeted.

... attacks were launched on Hamburg, Cologne, Dresden and other German cities. This air campaign killed an estimated 600,000 civilians and destroyed or seriously damaged some six million homes.

... bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror ...

The atom bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also examples of area bombing. It has been estimated that over the years around 250,000 people have died as a result of these two bombs being dropped. " http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWarea.htm

300,000 1937-1938 Rape of Nanking: genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/
275 000 all recorded history through 2001 volcanoes. ``In recorded history, volcanic activity has killed about 275 000 people, estimates Tom Simkin ... recent decades have averaged around three deadly eruptions per year. ...'' -- S. Perkins in ``Scientists analyze volcanoes' killing ways'' article in _Science News_ 2001-01-13
200 000 1992-1995 Bosnia-Herzegovina genocide http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/

"Milosevic ... agreed to a partition of Bosnia. The war he had fomented had resulted in ... over 200 000 dead." Rudolph Chelminski in _Reader's Digest_ 1999 May.

170,000/year ??? ``Stroke kills nearly 170,000 people a year [in the U.S.]. That's about 1 of every 14 deaths. It's the third leading cause of death behind diseases of the heart and cancer. '' -- http://www.americanheart.org/downloadable/heart/1015263837906StkFct.pdf
150,000/year 1999 ??? More Christians have died for their faith in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined. About 150,000 each year are martyred. http://members.tripod.com/kelschbiblestudy1/sil_kills/
135,000 1945-02-13 the bombing of Dresden

Dresden was nearly totally destroyed. As a result of the firestorm it was afterwards impossible to count the number of victims. Recent research suggest that 135,000 were killed but some German sources have argued that it was over 250,000. Whatever the figure, it was probably greater than the 51,509 British civilians killed by the Luftwaffe during the whole of the Second World War and the 70,000 immediate deaths at Hiroshima after the dropping of the first atom bomb on 6th August 1945. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm

"the fire-bombing of Dresden on 13th February 1945. 135,000 people died in the ruins of Dresden, which means that it was the greatest man-caused massacre of all times (71,379 people were killed by the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima.)" -- Marek Vit http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/4953/themes.html

Why do some Americans feel guilty about our justified bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which immediately killed 120,000 Japanese (some estimates are significantly higher), and not about the unjustified bombing of Dresden, which killed 135,000 Germans? -- Ernest W. Lefever http://www.eppc.org/publications/xq/ASP/pubsID.123/qx/pubs_viewdetail.htm

leading British air strategists ... advocating ... an all-out attack on noncombatants, men, women, and children, as a deliberate policy of terror.

... terrorist attacks against civilians ...

-- Alexander McKee ? http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v06/v06p247_Lutton.html
120 000 /year 
From: "Jeff Harding" 
Subject: Christlib: Fw: interesting stats
Date: Tue, 6 Jun 2000 07:37:40 -0500

 Read this tidbit this morning...

 DOCTORS ARE DANGEROUS

 Number of physicians in the US = 700,000
 Accidental deaths caused by physicians per year = 120,000
 Accidental deaths per physician = 0.171
 (U.S. Dept. of Health & Human Services)

 Number of gun owners in the US = 80,000,000
 Number of accidental gun deaths per year (all age groups) = 1,500
 Accidental deaths per gun owner = 0.0000188 (U.S. Bureau of Alcohol,
 Tobacco & Firearms)

 Therefore, doctors are approximately 9,000 times more dangerous than guns.
 owners.  Taken from the Benton County News Tribune on the seventeenth of
 November, 1999

 Moral? It pays to know how to take care of your own health!

Ronald Gerughty mentions that Recent studies have estimated that from 44,000 to 98,000 Americans are killed each year from medical errors http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/02/05_malpractice.html

The really interesting question here is, what can you and I do about it ? "take care of your own health" is most important, but in addition to that perhaps there are other things you and I could do to make things better. Naturally there are other things you and I could do to make things worse. Ronald Gerughty suggested passing a law with Restrictions on the number of hours worked by health care professionals since fatigue is a documented cause of errors. and many other laws.

120,000 1991 the first Gulf war

"Counting the dead: In the event of war, how many Iraqi civilians will die? And how many will starve, or be displaced? In secret, the UN has been doing the sums" article by Jonathan Steele Wednesday January 29, 2003 The Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,884356,00.html

In Afghanistan it is calculated that bombing killed about 5,000 civilians directly. Up to 20,000 other Afghans died through the disruption of drought relief and the bombing's other indirect effects, according to a Guardian investigation of death rates at camps for the internally displaced. Bombing in Iraq would probably produce similar proportions of direct and indirect fatalities.

Medact, the UK affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, estimates casualties could be five times higher than in the 1991 Gulf war. ... in a report available on the first Gulf war, the UN calculated that between 3,500 and 15,000 civilians died during the war (plus between 100,000 and 120,000 Iraqi troops). A new war of the kind projected by the US could kill between 2,000 and 50,000 in Baghdad and between 1,200 and 30,000 on the southern and northern fronts in Basra, Kirkuk and Mosul. If biological and chemical weapons were used, up to 33,000 more people could die.

... points to http://www.medact.org/

[FIXME: break up into individual statistics]

100 000/year 2000 ? "the Amoeba ... Entamoeba histolytica, which is estimated to infect about half a billion people and causes about 100,000 deaths per year." -- James Smith http://martin.parasitology.mcgill.ca/jimspage/biol/Amoeba.htm
100,000 0001 to 0100 A.D. ``Some 50,000 to 100,000 Jews were themselves crucified by the Romans in the first century.'' http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/anti-semitism/jesus.html
86,000 1975 The Banqiao Dam ... China's Henan Province... failed catastrophically in 1975 ... Approximately 86,000 people died from the flooding and another 145,000 died during the subsequent epidemics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banqiao_Dam
85,000 1945-03-09 the March 9, 1945, firebombing of Tokyo, which killed 85,000 Japanese in one night -- Ernest W. Lefever 2000 http://www.eppc.org/publications/xq/ASP/pubsID.123/qx/pubs_viewdetail.htm
80 000 1995 (per year) ``In the US there are two million hospital acquired infections annually, resulting in a mortality of 80,000. That is three times the annual mortality from AIDS'' http://www.ourcivilisation.com/aids/chap2.htm
66 500 1914-1918 World War I (WWI) "the First World War"

more than 619,000 Canadian men and women served in the First World War, more than 66,500 died and between 138,000 and 173,000 were wounded. The Legion also says 2,818 were imprisoned by enemy forces and 175 merchant seamen were killed.

About one of every 10 Canadians who fought in the war didn’t return.

With a total population of about eight million -- ... Canadians ... most people in the rest of the country knew someone who had experienced a death in the family.

Sixty-five million people from 30 countries were involved in the war. One third of those were lost. Twenty-nine million more were captured or missing and the financial cost was measured in the hundreds of billions, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs.

During those four years, (1914-1918), Canada was transformed ...

... the war is generally regarded as one of the great tragedies of the 20th century ... -- "Cenotaphs a living honour to war dead" article by Bill Currie, Saturday, November 08, 2003 http://www.stcatharinesstandard.ca/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=48423&catname=Local+News

66 000 8:15 on the morning of August 6, 1945 Fusion bomb (Hiroshima) http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp10.htm (initial deaths; more died later from secondary effects)

Why do some Americans feel guilty about our justified bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which immediately killed 120,000 Japanese (some estimates are significantly higher), and not about the unjustified bombing of Dresden, which killed 135,000 Germans? ... The war's abrupt end spared some 400,000 American prisoners of war and civilian detainees in Japanese hands, all of whom were to be executed had the U.S. invaded. The U.S. Pacific command estimated that at least 500,000 Americans and three times as many Japanese would have died in an invasion. Thus, the atom bombs may have saved 2 million lives, mostly Japanese. -- Ernest W. Lefever http://www.eppc.org/publications/xq/ASP/pubsID.123/qx/pubs_viewdetail.htm

51,509 1939-1945 ... the 51,509 British civilians killed by the Luftwaffe during the whole of the Second World War ... http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/2WWdresden.htm
48 000 1988 (per year) ``The Truth About Guns??'' http://libertarian.faithweb.com/articles/cars.html
44,500/year 2003 Motor vehicle deaths ... Deaths in 2003 totaled 44,500, up 1 percent from the 2002 total of 44,000. ... The estimated annual mileage death rate is 1.57 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled http://nsc.org/issues/driving/TrafficSafetyDec2003.pdf
43 000 / year 1999 ? "43 000 women die of breast cancer each year" -- _Reason_ Magazine_ 2000 http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/ ``43,300 will die ... The leading cause of death for African-American women, ages 30-54, is breast cancer. African-American women die at twice the rate of white women.'' -- http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/myths31.htm ... Breast Cancer Prevention Institute http://bcpinstitute.org/ ???
[ how many ???] per year deaths attributed to using a cell phone while driving

"a University of Toronto study warns that drivers using a cell phone have four times the normal accident rate -- making driving while phoning as deadly as driving while drunk." -- _Consumer Reports_ 1999 Oct.

-- (many war stats at http://cogsci.ucsd.edu/~sereno/war.html )
[ how many ???] How many people have died from asbestos ?

"It's estimated that mandatory asbestos removal from 110 000 public school buildings will cost taxpayers $ 49 000 000 per life saved." -- _Reason_ Magazine_ 2000

-- [FIXME: grab some numbers from http://www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/spacegd.html ? ]
[ how many ???] Man-made Disasters http://www.edmasters.cyberteacher.com/EMLdis3A.htm | mirror http://www.edmasters.cyberteacher.com/EMLdis3Z.htm | very similar site: Man-made Disasters http://www.readyed.com.au/urls/disaster3.html [breadk up into individual statistics ?]
[ how many ???] Chernobyl
[ how many ???] Boer War in South Africa
[FIXME: get some numbers from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/ ]
[ how many ???] the first winter: Pilgrims on the Mayflower
43 000 1996 deaths from Motor Vehicle accidents in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
39 000 August 9th, 1945, at about 7:50 A.M. Fusion bomb (Nagasaki) http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/abomb/mp10.htm (initial deaths; more died later from secondary effects)
38 000 1994 people died in the US from gunshot wounds.
35 000 / year "35 000 American men die of prostrate cancer ... each year" -- _Reason_ Magazine_ 2000
29,350/year 2000 "Intentional self-harm" http://nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm seems to say that 29 350 Americans successfully committed suicide in the year 2000. ... "The Economics of Suicide" by Charles Duhigg, Oct. 29, 2003 http://slate.msn.com/id/2090424/
22 500/year "Some 22,500 people are killed every year by exposure to insecticides" (worldwide) -- http://www.eco-action.org/dt/bhopal.html [FIXME: more details ?]
20 000 (per year) `` About 70 million [Americans] get today's flu vaccine ... each year. Yet influenza still kills 20 000 Americans each year and hospitalizes about 100 000.'' -- Tulsa World 2001-07-27

"Influenza in an average year kills 20 000 people in the United states." -- federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

14 000 1996 deaths from accidental falls in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
12 000 per year 3500 elderly people commit suicide each year in France ... The main reasons they give is loneliness and the feeling of uselessness. ... Frenchmen, aged 75 or more, have nearly the highest suicide rate in Europe, ... Suicide accounts for 12 000 deaths a year in France, http://www.lafrance2003.org/UK/downloads/prayerguides%202002/pgpdf.pdf
13 000/year 2002 ? "Brain tumors affect about 18,000 people in the United States every year, killing 13,000." -- "Study: Altered virus kills brain tumors in mice" Copyright 2003 Reuters. May 6, 2003 http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/conditions/05/06/cancer.virus.reut/index.html
13 000 ? 1984 major accident at chemical plant in Bhopal "On Dec. 2-3, 1984, Bhopal, India was the site of the world's worst chemical disaster, killing 16,000 people" -- http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/remember-bhopal "there were 13,000 death claims, whereas government figures showed 4,000 deaths." -- http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/uu21le/uu21le0c.htm | photos by Pablo Bartholomew http://www.m-web.com/bhopal_photos.html
9 800 1996 deaths from accidental poisoning (including drugs) in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
10,000 1900-09-08 _Isaac's Storm_ book by Erik Larson On September 8, 1900, a massive hurricane slammed into Galveston, Texas. ... By the time the water and winds subsided, ... as many as 10,000 were dead -- making this the worst natural disaster in America's history. http://www.blumer.org/adam/books.htm
8 428 1776-1865 (?) ``all America's battle deaths from the Revolutionary War up to the Civil War (8,428).'' -- George Will, in article ``Destroy haystacks, not needles'' 2001-09-14
8 000 1995 July "Bosnian Serb troops overran U.N. peacekeeping forces and seized the city of Srebrenica in July 1995. The estimated 8000 Muslims who were thereupon executed constituted the biggest single mass murder in Europe since World War II." -- Rudolph Chelminski in _Reader's Digest_ 1999 May.
8 000/day 2003 "At a rate of 8,000 deaths a day, HIV/AIDS claims as many casualties as the Vietnam War every seven weeks and as many as World War I every three years." http://www.worldvision.org/Worldvision/pr.nsf/hopequizdone1?OpenForm&q1=b .(global)
5 000 1995 earthquake in the city of Kobe Japan http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_426000/426035.stm .
5 000 1998 pedestrians killed by automobile drivers in the US [fixme: is this right ?]
about 5 000 1793 ``the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic. Philadelphia was literally decimated by this epidemic: about 5,000 of Philadelphia's 50,000 residents were taken by the Aedes mosquito.'' -- http://www.ushistory.org/tour/tour_tomb.htm
5 000 1972 "like the mercury tainted wheat which led to the death of as many as 5,000 Iraquis in 1972, wheat which had been exported from the U.S." -- http://www.eco-action.org/dt/bhopal.html [FIXME: more details ?]
4 000 1952 "industrial pollution killed some 4,000 people in ... in London, in 1952, when several days of "normal" pollution accumulated in stagnant air to kill and permanently injure thousands of Britons." -- http://www.eco-action.org/dt/bhopal.html
3 981 2001-09-11 terrorists who hijacked and crashed American Flight 11 from Boston, United Flight 175 from Boston, American Flight 77 from Washington D.C., and United Flight 93 from Newark NJ, into the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon. http://usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/11/death-toll.htm | http://www.unitedheroes.com/ | http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/worldtrade.crash/story.html
3 900 1996 deaths from accidental drowning in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
3,000 2001-2002 U.S. military in Afghanistan "3,000 - 3,400 [October 7, 2001 thru March 2002] civilian deaths -- in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan" -- Marc W. Herold Ph.D., University of New Hampshire http://www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths.htm partial mirror http://www.media-alliance.org/mediafile/20-5/index.html
3,200 1996 deaths from accidental fires and burns in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
3,000 1996 deaths from accidental suffocation in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
2 500/year 1998 land mines Campaigners against landmines, who recently received the Nobel Peace Prize, hailed a new ban treaty as a gift to future generations. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, approximately 60 to 100 million mines are still scattered throughout 69 countries. These weapons kill or maim more than 25,000 people a year -- equivalent to a victim every 22 minutes. http://www3.telus.net/st_simons/cr9802.htm [FIXME: how many are killed ? I randomly guess 1 in 10 are killed, the rest are "merely"maimed. Need better numbers.]
2 395 1941-12-07 353 aircraft pilots of the Japanese Imperial Navy attacked Pearl Harbor and Hickam Field, on the Island of O'ahu, Hawaii, a territory of the United States, killing 2 341 U.S. military personnel and 54 civilians. http://www.execpc.com/~dschaaf/pearl2.html | http://www.pearlharbor.navy.mil/ | http://www.history.navy.mil/faqs/faq66-1.htm | http://plasma.nationalgeographic.com/pearlharbor/ [FIXME: the official numbers are slightly different]
1,400/year 1996 unintentional firearm-injury deaths in America (_Accident Facts_ from the National Safety Council)
1000/year ??? ``Lightning kills about 300 people each year in the United States ... More than one thousand people are killed each year in the U.S. due to generated electric current ... A safety key to prevent inexperienced operators from energizing a coil is essential.'' ttp://www.pupman.com/safety.htm (see high_voltage.html#tesla ) [better source ?]

However, another source claims:

From 1971 to 2000, lightning strikes killed an average of 73 people each year -- compared with 68 tornado fatalities and 16 hurricane deaths. http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories/s1161.htm ... which points to an album of lightening photographs http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/nssl/lightning1.html .

400 / year 400 men die of breast cancer each year http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/myths31.htm (2001)
400/year "The Consumer Product Safety Commission says cooking equipment ... causes 400 deaths ... each year." -- 1999
390 / year 1998 "Jim Clark ... Tulsa police sergeant ... An estimated 600 000 officers police the United States, whose population is roughly 250 million. Clark said about 375 to 400 suspects are fatally shot by police each year." -- _Tulsa World_ 1999-08-22
350 / per year 2000 "This was the deadliest crossing at the border since 1987 when 18 Mexican men died in a locked railroad boxcar near Sierra Blanca, Texas. However, deaths due to exposure at the border are all too common. The Border Patrol places its official numbers of such deaths at over 350 last year alone. ... We've made the act of looking for a better job in the United States a crime that carries the death penalty with it." http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_21/No_3/article_4.htm
290 1988-07-03 "the destruction of Iranian Air flight 655 by the USS Vincennes ... that killed 290 civilians. ... (For full details and documentation see: Chris Hables Gray, "AI at War: The Aegis System in Combat" in _Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing_ 1990, Vol. III, D. Shuler, ed., Ablex, 1996, pp. 62-79.)" -- http://cpsr.org/program/peace/#essay

"On July 3, 1988, and American warship shot down an Iranian airliner, killing 290 civilians. This is the true story of how it happened..." http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/vince.html

_Storm Center: the USS Vincennes and Iran Air Flight 655: A Personal Account of Tragedy and Terrorism_ book by Will Rogers, Sharon Rogers

http://www.sundayherald.com/13435

274/year 2002

Mon Mar 17,2003 -- US: West Nile virus may well complete its coast-to-coast spread this summer, infecting large numbers. There's no good way to predict, as the deadly virus is from a family that's notoriously fickle. But during last year's record-setting epidemic -- (of those reported & confirmed) more than 4,000 people became ill and 274 died -- only a handful of states escaped human illness.

-- http://upway.com/cgi-bin/readnews.cgi?day=03_03_17&item=#1047917437
270 1988-12-21 "the destruction of PanAm flight 103 over Lockerbie on December 21,1988 ... 270 people" http://www.sundayherald.com/13435

"December 21st, 1988 flight Pan Am 103 exploded and pieces of the plane fell onto the Scottish town of Lockerbie, killing 259 people on the plane and 11 people on the ground." http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/5260/headpage.html

250/year "in the U.S. ... chemical incidents ... On average, these accidents kill about 250 people nationwide every year." http://ens-news.com/ens/dec1999/1999-12-02-07.asp
168 1995-04-19 Timothy McVeigh ... truck bomb ... the Oklahoma City federal building [also known as] the Alfred P. Murrah building http://www.okcbombing.org/News%20Articles/missile_murrah.htm , http://www.vikingphoenix.com/news/stn/2000/stn2000-025.htm , http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/mcveigh717.htm

"April 19, 1995 ... 168 people were dead in the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil. (Prior to 09-11-01) ... McVeigh was sentenced to death. Nichols was ... convicted of Involuntary Manslaughter and Conspiracy to Use a Weapon of Mass Destruction, and was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole." -- http://www.clarkprosecutor.org/html/death/US/mcveigh717.htm

135 2000 ``Assailants killed 51 law enforcement officers on duty in the United States last year ... Of the killings in 2000, 13 were officers conducting traffic stops; 12 involved arrest situations; 10 were ambushes; 8 were officers responding to disturbance calls; 6 involved investigations of suspicious circumstances; and 2 were officers handling prisoners. ... In addition, 84 officers were accidentally killed on duty in 2000. ... including 42 automobile accidents ... 14 struck by vehicles ... 7 Aircraft accidents ... 6 Motorcycle accidents ... 3 accidental shootings ... out of 441 311 local, state, and federal law enforcement officers '' -- www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/00leoka.pdf
100/year 2000 ? On average, 100 people choke to death on ballpoint pens every year. [FIXME: source ? Is this just US, or is it global ?]
50/year Every year, ... in the United States ... about 50 die from ... chickenpox http://thinktwice.com/cpox.htm Thinktwice Global Vaccine Institute http://thinktwice.com/
40 / year 1998 "Tipsy people frying late-night meals are to blame for many of the house fires that kill about 40 people each year, the [British] government said Monday as it launched an advertising campaign warning of the danger. ... The government plans to spend the equivalent of $2.4 million on the campaign." -- London (AP) 1999-08-24
20/year 1997 playground-related injuries 53 000 children are injured in a year in accidents at playgrounds. Nearly 30 000 of these occur on monkey-bars. Roughly 20 children a year pay for play with their lives! -- david zjaba http://lonsberry.com/writers/zjabs/index.cfm?story=6420 quoting from http://www.mast.mb.ca/student_safety/playgound%20saftey/danger.htm
20/year 1999 water heaters igniting flammable vapors Each year, gas-fired water heaters igniting flammable vapors cause nearly 2,000 fires, 320 injuries, 20 deaths and more than $26 million in property damage. http://www.cpsc.gov/cpscpub/prerel/prhtml99/99157.html (apparently, someone invented a burner design that prevents this from happening ... how ?)
14 1989-12-06 The Montréal Massacre http://www.howdyneighbor.com/one-in-ten/FEMINISTmassacre.html , "the worst single-day massacre in Canadian history." http://www.gendercide.org/case_montreal.html
14 2000 Out of 67 people involved in the murder of a law enforcement officer in 2000, 14 of them died in 2000. -- www.fbi.gov/ucr/killed/00leoka.pdf
13/year ~1998 bus and motor coach accidents.

"the [US] National Transportation Safety Board decided ... not to recommend seat belts in school buses. ...

The board also recommended that buses be equipped with data recorders starting Jan. 1, 2003. ...

School bus design is closely regulated ... Motor coaches -- the type of bus used by Greyhound -- have no occupant protection standards.

Regardless, school buses and motor coaches are considered the safest forms of transportation on the road. On average, nine people are killed each year in school buses, and four die in motor coaches. Roughly 42 000 are killed annually in car and truck accidents."

-- Glen Johnson, Associated Press, 1999 Sept. 22
12 c. 1870-1889 The feud between the Hatfields & McCoys (which took place during most of 1870s and 1880s) resulted in the deaths of 12 people. http://www.discovery.com/news/archive/news990510/brief6.html?ct=3745fa83
7 1929 The St. Valentine's Day Massacre the most spectacular mob hit in gangland history http://www.prairieghosts.com/valentine.html | http://foia.fbi.gov/massacre.htm | http://www.mysterynet.com/love/valentine/massacre/

[FIXME: add the following data to the above table]

cpu

CPU die sizes, transistor counts, etc.

chip sizes

Please help me complete this table. [FIXME: besides mm, also *date* when each CPU was released ... also transistor linewidths and number of gates/transistors would be nifty. ]

computer_architecture.html#benchmarks lists information about how to benchmark a CPU.

big money

prices dollars pounds $ € £ ¤

[FIXME: sort by magnitude]

speed and velocity

unsorted Bignums

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