- Either deaths of American Citizens, or deaths on American soil -– this is to prevent things like the Boxing Day Tsunami, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings, U.S. Strategic bombing raids during WW2, etc from being included on the list (and yes, Americans died in all of these events).
- Death must be a single linked cause -– this is to prevent counting individual days of deaths, which realistically would only go up every day and set new records even without the COVID-19 epidemic just because people die every day. Looking for every single death that occurred on every single day would kind of defeat the purpose of this graphic
- Deaths must take place in a single day -– this is to prevent wider ranging causes of death like wars to avoid drowning out this list, and is clearly demonstrated by the use of Galveston, Antietam, etc on this list and not mutlimulti-day battles like The Battle of the Bulge or wider ranging conflicts such as wars.
1900 Galveston hurricane - Wikipedia reports anywhere from 6,000 - 12,000 deaths, 8,000 is in the ball park. Wikipedia even says that the 8,000 number is the one most commonly cited, but because of limitations on information gathering the true number of dead will probably remain unknown.
Battle of Antietam - Wikipedia reports 3,675 between the Union and Confederate armies, which puts the graphic's number of 3,600 close enough that I won't complain. Notably, this battle took place on a single day, so while it does not take the title of "deadliest battle for American soldiers", those other battles (with one exception, which I will talk about later) do not hold the title for "deadliest day for American Soldiers".
SeptermberSeptember 11th, 2001 Terror Attacks - Wikipedia lists the number of deaths in the combined terror attacks of September 11th as 2,977. This is not including the 19 highjackers who also died on 9/11, which would bring this number to 2,996. However, the number cited on the list includes people who died in the aftermath of the attacks.
Spanish Flu - October 1918 -– there does not seem to be exact data on each day like there is in the case of the COVID-19 epidemic, but most estimates claim that 195,000 Americans died of the Spanish Flu in October 1918. This works out to an average of approximately 6,300 deaths per day over the course of the entire month. Realistically, this should push everything except maybe the GavlestonGalveston Hurricane off this list.
Normandy Landings - 6 June 1944 -– estimates put the list of American Soldiers killed during the invasion at 2,501, which would rank it above Pearl Harbor, 1 December 2020, and 4 December 2020 on the original graphic.
Battle of Gettysburg - 1-3 June 1863 -– estimates are hard to come by due to lack of specific information. Historynet.com puts the casualties for the entire 3 day battle at 7,058, which would put it at an average of 2,352 deaths a day. This average isn't quite enough to get on the list, but most likely one of the days would have made it. Special note goes to 3 June 1863, and specifically Pickett's Charge, as the most likely candidate that would make it on this list.
1906 San Francisco Earthquake - exact numbers are not known, but the United States Geological Survey lists the number of deaths at 3,000+.
15, 7, 21, 29, 23, 14, 22, 30 April 2020, in that order -– per JH, each one of these days had a higher death count than Pearl Harbor.