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AD 1493–1550s Native peoples begin dying from European diseases Diseases unknown to them spread rapidly among Native peoples, who lack immunity to viruses and bacteria ... |
AD 1520–62 ‘Virgin-soil’ epidemics devastate Native populations “Virgin-soil” epidemics sweep through populations with no prior exposure to a particular infectious ... |
1761 First known influenza pandemic from the Americas begins Influenza is one of the diseases that Europeans brought to the New World. Unlike previous influenza ... |
1775 Smallpox strikes again in North America As the American Revolution begins, epidemic smallpox spreads across North America, killing hundreds ... |
1780 Smallpox epidemics strike Mexico and the Great Plains For two years, smallpox spreads from Mexico north and throughout the Great Plains, killing many members ... |
1832 U.S. vaccinates Native peoples on the frontier against smallpox Congress passes the Indian Vaccination Act and appropriates $12,000 to hire physicians to vaccinate Native ... |
1833 Whooping cough crosses the Great Plains Whooping cough spreads across the U.S., killing babies and children, for whom the infection is particularly ... |
1848 Successive epidemics spread across U.S., Alaska, Hawai‘i In September, a series of deadly epidemics, including measles, whooping cough, and influenza, sweeps ... |
1854 ‘Red men will be numbered with the dead,’ physicians state The American physicians Josiah Nott and George Gliddon theorize in their book Types of Mankind that ... |
1879 U.S. assigns health care at boarding schools The Office of Indian Affairs, recognizing that epidemics are decimating boarding school student populations, ... |