What historical conflict was the bloodiest in relative terms - i.e., considering the death toll as a percentage of the global population at the time?

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Arthur Wright Profile
Arthur Wright , Florida Paralegal with a BS degree in Social-Psychology, answered


I would say this probably was WWII since it involved a great deal of the planet and many died from every Nation/country, more than any other global conflict

thanked the writer.
Stuart Smith
Stuart Smith commented
I'd be surprised... WWII killed about 70 million I think, at a time when the world population was over 2 billion. Tamerlane's conquests killed about 17 million, but he lived in the year Thirteen Hundred and Something, so I think those deaths would have represented a much larger fraction of the total population. And I know there've been some historical conflicts in China that killed tens of millions...

I will try to dig up the relevant figures and report back.
Yo Kass
Yo Kass commented
It's hard to get accurate figures, but I would have thought the 12th century emperor Genghis Khan would rank somewhere up there too.

I'm not sure about specific conflicts, but it is said he killed so many people that his reign was one the biggest reductions of CO2 emissions this planet has ever seen.

One figure banded about online is that had around 1.7million were killed in one single town as an act of revenge, so I imagine the his overall campaign to Asia was equally bloody

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