There have been three great world pandemics of plague recorded, in 541, 1347, and 1894 CE, each time causing devastating mortality of people and animals across nations and continents. On more than one occasion plague irrevocably changed the social and economic fabric of society.

When did the plagues start?

Plague pandemics hit the world in three waves from the 1300s to the 1900s and killed millions of people. The first wave, called the Black Death in Europe, was from 1347 to 1351. The second wave in the 1500s saw the emergence of a new virulent strain of the disease.

What plague was in the 1800s?

The third plague: the 19th-century pandemic that killed 12 million people. Between 1855 and 1959 – more than 500 years after the medieval Black Death – a new plague pandemic ravaged the globe, killing some 12 million people...