Pandemics

Estimated to have claimed half the population of Europe, this outbreak of the bubonic plague impacted the Byzantine Empire and Mediterranean port cities, taking as many as 25 million people in the course of a year. This is the first recorded incident of the Bubonic Plague. It devastated the city of Constantinople, where it was killing an estimated 5,000 people per day, eventually resulting in the deaths of 40% of the city’s population.