Brazil surpassed 500,000 deaths from the coronavirus on June 19, a record that will mark one of the saddest chapters in the country's history.
Although many Brazilians forgot it, there was another tragedy that exterminated at least 500,000 in the 19th century, mainly affecting residents in the northeast, which at that time was part of the Empire that lasted until 1889.
That tragic period is known as "The Great Drought" or "Drought of the Brazilian Northeast."
Although many remember the Spanish Flu of 1918 when the coronavirus began to haunt the world in March 2020, another catastrophe killed 50 million people around the globe between 1877 and 1879. In that case, the main cause of death was hunger and not a virus.
In times when it was difficult to forecast, a succession of combined climatic events generated an unprecedented drought at the equatorial region of the planet.
In Brazil, specifically, a lack of rain started dark times, hardships and famines, which also included a smallpox epidemic.
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