When Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, a new era of trading was born – everything from cultures and ideas to potatoes and tobacco. However, one thing that might have been skipped over in your history class was the huge transfer of diseases, viruses, bugs, and lurgies.
Within 500 years, the native population of the Americas dropped by 90 percent. Although war and strife caused their fair share of deaths, the overwhelming majority were caused by a cocktail of smallpox, influenza, cholera, measles, Black Death, and other Old World diseases. But you would have thought that if the natives caught the Europeans' diseases, the Europeans would get the natives' diseases, right?
The strange thing is they barely did – at least not on a population-wiping scale. But why?
Check out this video by CGP Grey for the answer.
