Major Pandemics: Timeline

Synopsis of some of the major pandemics, in chronological order, compiled based on the severity of the disease in terms of death toll.

Date	Pandemic name	Death toll
430 BC	The plague of Athens	25% of population
1347–1351	Black death	200M
1520-onward	New world smallpox	56M
1885	Third plague	12M
1918–1919	Spanish flu	40–50M
1981–present	AIDS	25–35M
2009–2010	Swine flu	200K
2019–present	COVID-19	>0.5M

Source: Extracted from The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), United States National Library of Medicine (NLM). Visit the site for a complete and detailed version of the pandemics-timeline.