Human Population History (1)

Until about Middle Ages, human population was held in check by diseases, famine, and wars that made life short and uncertain for most people. Among the most destructive of natural population control were plagues (disease) that periodically swept across Europe between 1348 and 1650. During the worst plague years, between 1348 and 1350, it is estimated that at least one-third of the European population perished. However, this did not retard population growth for very long. In 1650, at the end of the last great plague, there were about 600 million people in the world.