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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Holocaust (sacrifice), a burnt offering, from Greek holo-kauston "all burnt". The original sense, referring to a completely-burnt sacrifice. By extension the word is being used in English to refer to other acts of obliteration by burning (or massacres in general). For example:Nuclear Holocaust, American Holocaust and Black Holocaust.

Since the mid-19th century, the word has been used by many authors to refer to large catastrophes and massacres, particularly those caused by immolation. According to the OED, the earliest attested such usage dates from 1671, but it became common in the 19th century.

Pre-modern time holocausts

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Destruction under the Mongol Empire

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Destruction under the Mongol Empire is considered very significant in many historical sources, ranging to around 40 million or more deaths caused by the Mongol invasion as a result of direct casualty and disruption of farming resulting in famine, flooding and diseases. This casualty amount is considered to be from early 1200s to mid 1400s.

Mongols' raids and invasions are generally ranked as one of the deadliest to human life[1][2] .

Modern time holocausts

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Nanking massacre

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The 'Nanking Massacre, commonly known as the Rape of Nanking, was an infamous war crime committed by the Japanese military in Nanjing (Nanking), then the capital of the Republic of China, after it fell to the Imperial Japanese Army on December 13, 1937. The duration of the massacre is not clearly defined, although the violence lasted at least until early February 1938. Estimates of the death count vary, with most reliable sources holding that 200,000 to 300,000 Chinese civilians were massacred in this period.[3][4]

Great Chinese Famine

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The Great Chinese Famine (Chinese: 三年大饑荒), officially referred to as the Three Years of Natural Disasters(Chinese:三年自然災害), was the period in China between 1958 and 1961 characterized by widespread famine, during which time the national harvesting of grains was normal, and the government was exporting grains. According to government statistics, there were 15 million excess deaths in this period. Unofficial estimates vary, but are often considerably higher. Yang Jisheng, a former Xinhua News Agency reporter who spent over ten years gathering information available to no other scholars, estimates a toll of 36 million. His published book on this human disaster is called Tomb Stone[5]

Anna Applebaum of The Washington Post wrote:

Tiananmen Square Massacre

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The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 culminating in the Tiananmen Square Massacre (referred to in Chinese as the June Fourth Incident, to avoid confusion with two other Tiananmen Square protests) were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between 15 April and 4 June 1989. They were mainly led by Beijing students and intellectuals. The protests occurred in a year that saw the collapse of a number of Socialist governments around the world.

Reference

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  1. ^ http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat0.htm#Mongol
  2. ^ http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1510/is_1987_Fall/ai_5151514/pg_2
  3. ^ Fogel, Joshua A. The Nanjing Massacre in History and Historiography. 2000, page 46-8
  4. ^ Dillon, Dana R. The China Challenge. 2007, page 9-10
  5. ^ "A hunger for the truth: A new book, banned on the mainland, is becoming the definitive account of the Great Famine.", chinaelections.org, 7 July 2008
  6. ^ "When China Starved". The Washington Post. August 12, 2008. Retrieved 2008-11-03.

See also

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Category:Massacres Category:Famines in China Category:War Category:Japanese invasion of China Category:Japanese armies