Oh yes, there was plenty of genocide in the 19th century, too. It's just that the tools to really do the job effectively weren't fully in place yet, so you only got partial results.

One of the biggest die-offs was undoubtedly what happened to natives of the Americas from smallpox and other European diseases. Most of this was unintentional, but it still wiped out up to 90% of the population according to some estimates.

Did you know that the influenza epidemic of 1914 (or thereabouts) killed more people than the First World War?

And I agree, John Skeptic, we will have to all work at making the world a friendlier place for human beings. We're not off to a terribly good start yet, but we shall all have to work on bringing things around.

Kat -- PP in this case doesn't mean pianissimo, does it?

Alex