The Great Chinese Famine was a period of catastrophic food shortage in China that followed the launch of the Great Leap Forward, the campaign led by Mao Zedong to transform the country rapidly into an industrial society. Agriculture was reorganised into huge people's communes, farmers were diverted to small-scale steel production, and local officials reported wildly exaggerated harvests, which led to excessive grain requisitioning. Poor weather and policy errors made the problem worse, and the government was slow to acknowledge it. Estimates of the number who died of starvation and related causes range from around fifteen million to over forty million, making it one of the deadliest famines in history. Mao's authority was weakened and the radical policies were scaled back.
Before and after
- 1959Invention of Floyd–Warshall algorithm
- 1959Construction of Ngorongoro Conservation Area
- 1959HIV/AIDS
- 1959Creation of ALGOL
- from 1959 to 1961Great Chinese Famine
- 1959Construction of Boryspil International Airport
- 1959Founding of York University
- 1959Invention of Dijkstra's algorithm
- 1 January 1959Castro's revolution takes power in Cuba
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The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.