Taken from Steven Pinker’s: The Better Angels of Our Nature p.235
| Rank | Cause | Century | Death toll | Death toll: mid-20th-century equivalent | Adjusted Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Second World War | 20th | 55,000,000 | 55,000,000 | 9 |
| 2 | Mao Zedong (mostly government-caused famine) | 20th | 40,000,000 | 40,000,000 | 11 |
| 3 | Mongol Conquests | 13th | 40,000,000 | 278,000,000 | 2 |
| 4 | An Lushan Revolt | 8th | 36,000,000 | 429,000,000 | 1 |
| 5 | Fall of the Ming Dynasty | 17th | 25,000,000 | 112,000,000 | 4 |
| 6 | Taiping Rebellion | 19th | 20,000,000 | 40,000,000 | 10 |
| 7 | Annihilation of the American Indians | 15-19th | 20,000,000 | 92,000,000 | 7 |
| 8 | Josef Stalin | 20th | 20,000,000 | 20,000,000 | 15 |
| 9 | Mideast Slave Trade | 7-19th | 19,000,000 | 132,000,000 | 3 |
| 10 | Atlantic Slave Trade | 15th-19th | 18,000,000 | 83,000,000 | 8 |
| 11 | Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) | 14th-15th | 17,000,000 | 100,000,000 | 6 |
| 12 | British India (mostly preventable famine) | 19th | 17,000,000 | 35,000,000 | 12 |
| 13 | First World War | 20th | 15,000,000 | 15,000,000 | 16 |
| 14 | Russian Civil War | 20th | 9,000,000 | 9,000,000 | 20 |
| 15 | Fall of Rome | 3rd-5th | 8,000,000 | 105,000,000 | 5 |
| 16 | Congo Free State | 19th-20th | 8,000,000 | 12,000,000 | 18 |
| 17 | Thirty Years’ War | 17th | 7,000,000 | 32,000,000 | 13 |
| 18 | Russia’s Time of Troubles | 16th-17th | 5,000,000 | 23,000,000 | 14 |
| 19 | Napoleonic Wars | 19th | 4,000,000 | 11,000,000 | 19 |
| 20 | Chinese Civil War | 20th | 3,000,000 | 3,000,000 | 21 |
| 21 | French Wars of Religion | 16th | 3,000,000 | 14,000,000 | 17 |