# How often has a conquering country completely wiped out the conquered?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-has-a-conquering-country-completely-wiped-out-the-conquered/681275>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [February 13, 2014, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-has-a-conquering-country-completely-wiped-out-the-conquered/681275 "2014-02-13T20:02:53Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 3

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**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\
**Post date:** [February 17, 2014, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-often-has-a-conquering-country-completely-wiped-out-the-conquered/681275/41 "2014-02-17T07:59:00Z")

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> [@dtilque](#):
>
> I don’t think there was anything special about Europeans that caused them to spread diseases in the New World. Just about any Old World people, whether European, Asian or African, would have done the same with the same amount of contact.

For that matter, the natives of the New World had diseases of their own which were brought back to the Old World by sailor on the explorers’ ships. (Syphilis, for example, is believed to be one such.)

It’s just that these diseases caused much fewer deaths back in the Old World, because the people there had a stronger immune system (due to more people living in more crowded (thus dirtier) conditions). Or possibly they did cause as many deaths, but it wasn’t as noticeable given the much larger populations in Europe – just a few more people amongst the many that died every day of various diseases & plagues.

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