Some facts about the Black Death (bubonic plague)

• In the fourteenth century a fearful disease spread over Europe. It was called the Black Death. Hundreds of millions of people died of it.
• The Black Death disease originated in or near China and spread by way of the Silk Road or by ship.
• There are many stories of the Black Death. Some tell of ghost ships that drifted about with all members of the crews dead. Some tell of beggars who stole gold and jewels from the dead and became very rich — but only for a day.
• The Black Death is estimated to have killed 30 percent – 60 percent of Europe's population in the 14th century.
• It took 150 years for Europe's population to recover. 
• One of the great doctors of the Middle Ages blamed the Black Death on Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars. These three planets, he said, were too close together in the sky. Now we know that the Black Death was caused by bacteria (Yersinia pestis) which fleas carried from rats to people.
• The Black Death may have reduced the world's population from an estimated 450 million to between 350 and 375 million in 1400.
• Today Black Death is called bubonic plague. It is still terrible, but we know how to fight against it.
• Fighting it means chiefly fighting rats and fleas. In our harbors we try to keep rats from coming ashore from ships. They might be bringing in bubonic plague.
• Medieval people called the calamity of the fourteenth century either the "Great Plague" or the "Great Pestilence".
• There have been three major outbreaks of plague. The Plague of Justinian in the 6th and 7th centuries. The Black Death of the 14th century. The Third Pandemic hit China and India in the 1890s.