This growth, however, was set back at intervals by famines, plagues, and wars, any of which could wipe out as much as half of the population in a given area. As late as the fourteenth century, the back death ( bubonic plague ) killed one-third of the population of Europe. Despite these catastrophic events, by 1880, the world’s population had grown to almost 1 billion, implying an annual growth rate of a mere 0.08 percent between 1 C.E. and 1800.