My vote is for WW2. It was destruction at the mass extinction scale and the birth of the nuclear era. Where else in earth history did mankind try to vaporize another country? Not to mention how the axis of power was systematiclly eliminating prisoners of war because they did not recognize the geneva convention.
The worse war the US has ever experienced was the Civil War. We have all heard of a half million or more soldiers drying. Yet, not many consider the death toll of civilians. When I was in college, I was a history major, most professors could not fully agree on the number of civilians killed during 1861 to 1865. They were prominent in their field. However, none could fully agree about how many the war affected. There were civilians who starved. There were civilians who were on the move trying to escape carnage, yet who were killed while trying to get out of the way. There were missing children who lost parents. Some of those missing children were never accounted for.
I think that World War II was the most destructive war. It altered the political climate of the world greatly. It also set europe back for a long time, because of how much damage it did. If World War II didn't happen, or if it affected the America homeland, I don't think that America would have become the world superpower it is today. p.s. It is amazing how Germany can just spring back from 2 world wars, and is still a country today that isn't broken.
I was thinking in terms of the very worse war that US citizens have ever suffered. You are correct in making that statement. WWII has been the worse destruction the earth has ever witnessed. After all an atomic bomb was dropped! It permanently changed the world's political structure. WWII affected every continent. The British empire was decimated. Therefore, each and every one of its colonies were affected. Africa and Asia changed. All oil producing countries grew more powerful immediately after the war. I must also mention the tens of millions who dies during the war.
By American casualties, the Civil war hands down was the worst. At least 625,000 people were killed on both sides. What made it worse, was that we did it to ourselves. Certainly, the numbers do not reflect all the innocents who were killed along the way. Other wars had far greater deaths, but this involved other countries, and weapons capable of taking out entire groups. Most of the direct deaths were caused by bayonet, lead ball, or cannon ball in the American Civil War.
WW2 and the invention of the atomic bomb has got to be the worse war. Never in human history has death and destruction been matched on a epic scale before. To be vaporized in a heartbeat had never been dreamt before, until then.
No matter what war is chosen, solid evidence can be given to support it as the worst war. However, it seems clear to me that there are two wars that were harder on both soldiers and civilians than most others: the Civil War and World War I. In both case, battlefield tactics lagged far behind battlefield technology. In the Civil War, for example, Pickett led his charge against new weapons which bred wounds the medical field hadn't learned to treat. In World War I, armies were not prepared for the horrible damage caused by the machine gun and poison gas, and millions of soldiers died as a result. It seems as though the worst conflicts are those which take place during transitional periods of history, when the technology of war runs ahead of new strategies.
The consensus on this thread is that WWII is the worst war due to the global scale, yet ain't revolutions considered a war? Wouldn't the deaths of those in concentration camps and re-education camps also be considered casualties of the revolution? How many died in gulags, in the Chinese cultural revolution, in the Cambodian killing fields?
In general terms it is the WW2. Numbers and statistic are there to confirm. Over 60 million people died. It is like 3 percent of people on earth then. Some claim that the number was around 80 millions if all victims are included. Meaning famine and disease that was caused by the war. Most of these were actually civilians so it is in a way more tragic. Another thing that puts this war to be the worst one is Holocaust. Too many crimes against humanity and cruelty in general.
The worst war?? The war that kills, maims, or wounds you or your love ones is the worst one, even though it may be a 'small war'.
The worst war?? The war that kills, maims, or wounds you or your love ones is the worst one, even though it may be a 'small war'.
The worst war?? The war that kills, maims, or wounds you or your love ones is the worst one, even though it may be a 'small war'.
The worst war, in my opinion, would have to be WW11. It is estimated 85 Million persons worldwide lost their lives because of that war. The statistics estimated the following: 15 million died in battle, 25 million subsequently died from battle wounds and there were 45 million civilian casualties. This was the only war in which nuclear bombs were utilised.
Yes, that was my answer, too... and for these same reasons. I have to admit though, and said so in the past, that I don't have nearly as much knowledge about WWII as the Civil War, so I had (until you said this) no firm concept of exactly how many civilian deaths we were talking about. I'm sure it was taught in my history classes over the years, but... well, I guess my mind and focus was always on Gettysburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Antietam, and Vicksburg, and I missed a lot of the other basic facts. But ask me how many civilians died at Gettysburg and I can give you full biographies. Well, one biography... since that's how many civilian deaths there were!
