The 5 Deadliest Pandemics In History

The outbreak of swine flu, first in Mexico then cases all over the world, has gotten a lot of people worried. Despite the existence of scarier diseases caused by exotic viruses like Hantavirus and Ebola, influenza still reigns as the number one infectious killer in modern times.

Unlike regular seasonal epidemics of the flu, there are also rare but deadly pandemics, i.e. cases of influenza that spread on a worldwide scale and infect a large proportion of the human population.
Here's a summary of the 5 deadliest pandemics in history.