10[sup]th[/sup] inning, game 6, 1986 World Series. Enter Bill Buckner …
In U.S. history anyway, I think the Trail of Tears must rank up there. The totality of black slavery surely equals it, but I don’t think you could narrow such a vast part of our history as that to an “event.” The Trail of Tears, on the other hand, stands in my mind as symbolic of the entire subjugation of Native Americans.
Pretty small potatoes from a humanity standpoint (I think just about as many folks died at Pearl Harbor if I’m remembering correctly) but I’ll definitely agree that it wasn’t a shinning moment in our nations history. Neither was the slave trade which was, I think, more devastating overall (and probably had a much higher body count, if we are going by that, especially if you factor in the transport phase of moving the slaves from Africa to here). However, I still say both events, while not forgivable, pale in comparison to what the Communists unleashed on the world. Even the hated Nazi’s have to take second place to those bastards.
-XT
I just had some pretty strong curry.
The worst event in history will happen in my bathroom sometime tomorrow morning.
For sheer volume of death, I nominate Cain’s murder of Abel (killed one quarter of humanity). Sorry, really old joke. (And I´m sure not truly accurate from a theological standpoint).
Conceptually, one of our biggest arguments here is the definition of “event.” Which of the following count: “Slavery”, “Imperialism”, “Genocide”, etc? I figure we should have category breakdowns for years, ranges of deathcounts, etc.
Esthetically, the ones that make me feel truly ill are the book burnings and the like: library of Alexandria, library of the city of Mexico, destruction of Mayan codices, China´s cultural and scientific accomplishments, etc. To me, the destruction of documents is a special kind of sin, an attack on truth, truly perverse. (One username I have used is “bibliolept”.)
But how about the murder of all the other potential sentient species, like the Neanderthals? Surely, the extinction of sapient species scores a little higher than the deaths of individual members of a sentient species (us).
karl gauss: no, that would be one of the best (the best being when the Mets won in '69). See, all a matter of perspective.
Well, although I think the question is meaninglessly subjective, I would like to point out some of the lesser-known atrocities and disasters that have been overlooked:
-The T’ai P’ing Rebellion, China, 1860s - millions of Chinese die in a conflict between a despotic and corrupt Imperial Manchu regime and an insane local cult.
-The Congo, 1890s - Belgian King Leopold plays the colonial game, taking the Congo as his personal fief. Works the locals to death to earn extra pocket money for himself. Some ten million Africans die horribly (cutting off hands was common, because the Congo ‘enforcers’ had to pay 1 hand for 1 bullet). This atrocity is enriched by the infiltration of humanitarian agencies by Leopold’s agents, to create good PR for his slave empire.
-Cambodia, 1970s. Bizzare auto-genicide by Khmer Rouge.
Goddamn right it was.
Cafe Society, you say? Hmm…
-Joe, may need to start reading Cafe Society…
Not really a single isolated event, but the rise of monotheism has certainly caused grief to a great many persons. With polytheism there was room for many competing gods. Only with the advent of monotheism did it became possible to kill your fellow man and excuse it as a religious cause.
Taking a properly wide perspective though (and studiously ignoring the dichotomy posed by askeptic), I’d have to agree with Sofa King - the Permian-Triassic extinction.
I nominate the burning of the library at Alexandria. I mean people die all the time.
I don’t buy into the logic of nominating one event because it subsequently led to other bad events. I mean, sure, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand caused two world wars, a flu epidemic, an economic collapse, and other countless things.
But it also led to the end of colonialism, the triumph of Western Democracy, and greater unity among the nations of Europe, among other good things.
I think the “worst event” should be limited only to the direct effects of an action that could have been prevented, i.e. one that man commited of his own free will. Limiting it to that, I think there are only three contenders in my mind:
The Holocaust: Yes, more people died in other genocides and purges, but only the Holocaust was carried out with such precision, state support, organization, and pure and utter hatred. Other ethnic groups have been purged because they were simply “in the way” of other things. The Nazis killed the Jews because they, quite simply, hated the Jews. Not to say the Russians didn’t also hate the Jews. But I can’t think of another genocide that was so large and so purely motivated by hatred, and carried out with an almost astounding degree of thought, planning, manipulation, organization and efficiency. It is the only time that mass-killing has been carried out like it were an industrial process.
The Burning of the Library at Alexandria: So, so much knowledge and culture lost in one singular event. A holocaust in and of itself. I don’t have much more to say about it because all I really know about it is that it may have been the single largest destruction of knowledge of all time
DING, DING, DING, DING!!! WE HAVE A WINNER!!!
Oh, and Grey, the destruction of the Library was already mentioned. 
Ah, but if the liberal, left-wing Crown Prince Rudolf had not killed himself in 1889, there wouldn’t have been as much unrest in Serbia, Franz Ferdinand never would have been Archduke and would not have been assassinated . . .
Quantity has a quality all its own. 
I would add the the first four Crusades (ca.1089-1205). They destroyed the tolerance and stopped much of the intellectual achievements of Islam, institutionalized the official sanctioning of pogroms and anti-semitism as no events had before, financially devastated much of eastern Europe and Spain, set into play the current Islam-Christian animosity, and achieved a cultural holocaust in 1204 Constantinople that only the burning(s) of the library at Alexandria could come close to approaching (the last remaining statue by Phydias was shattered, mosaics and manuscripts looted or destroyed, etc…)
Then there’s the bar-Kochba war which resulted in the death and or enslavement of more than a million Jews at the time, the Jewish depopulation of what is now Israel for more than 1,500 years, and ultimately the Crusades, the Holocaust and the Palestinian-Israeli crisis and much of U.S. v. Islam crises.
Ultimately it’s too impossible to proclaim one thing the worst. Let’s just hope that the worst thing ever to happen in history has already happened (i.e. Deney Terio will never have another show).
Good stuff all around, but just wanted to add this interesting little tidbit from a book I’m now reading (History of Foreign Exchange, by Paul Einzig):
So you can add ongoing destabilization of the international trading system to the list of things WWI started.
Lenin’s train ride into Russia. Had he been “permanently diverted”, the Bolsheviks would not have had their main organizer, and the true Revolutionary government would have stood a chance instead of the lying Bolshevik coup.