Three Plague Pandemics That Reshaped the World

Yersinia pestis has triggered three great pandemics. The Plague of Justinian arrived in 541 AD and battered the Byzantine world for two centuries. The Black Death of the 14th century killed 75 to 200 million people, 30 to 60 percent of Europe, the deadliest outbreak ever recorded.

The third pandemic began in China in the 1850s and reached every inhabited continent. Today antibiotics cure most cases, yet plague still surfaces in rodent populations, a reminder that ancient bacteria never truly disappear from the natural world..