Reading path · 5 stops

Plagues and Pandemics

How disease has redirected history as surely as any army.

Microbes have ended more dynasties than generals have. This path follows disease through history, from the plague that broke Justinian's reconquest to the smallpox that emptied continents, asking how societies broke, adapted and rebuilt.

Suits the Timekeeper · the Thinker

  1. 1 · Encyclopedia · EventBlack DeathA third to half of Europe dead in seven years, and the medieval order with them.
  2. 22 · Encyclopedia · TermSmallpoxThe conqueror that travelled with the conquistadors and did most of their work.
  3. 3 · Profile · 330 CE – 1453 CEByzantine EmpireJustinian's plague arrived at the empire's height and helped bury his reconquest of the West.
  4. 4 · Profile · 1325 CE – 1521 CEAztec EmpireAn empire of millions brought down as much by epidemics as by Spanish steel.
  5. 5 · Encyclopedia · EventFirst World WarThe war whose ending coincided with the deadliest influenza in history.

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