History of smallpox centuries, the WHO certified the global eradication of smallpox in December 1979. Smallpox is one of two infectious diseases to have been eradicated, the other being rinderpest, which was declared eradicated in 2011. It has been suggested that smallpox was a major component of the Plague of Athens that occurred in 430 BCE, during the Peloponnesian Wars, and was described by Thucydides. Galen's description of the Antonine Plague, which swept through the Roman Empire in 165–180, indicates that it was probably caused by smallpox. Returning soldiers brought the disease home with them to Syria and Italy, where it raged for
Human extinction plans and supplies for a long isolation. In addition, elaborate bunkers exist for government leaders to occupy during a nuclear war. Any number of events could lead to a massive loss of human life; but if the last few (but see minimum viable population), most resilient, humans are unlikely to also die off, then that particular human extinction scenario is not credible. Eliezer Yudkowsky theorizes that scope neglect plays a role in public perception of existential risks: Substantially larger numbers, such as 500 million deaths, and especially qualitatively different scenarios such as the extinction of the entire human species, seem