The Black Death was one of the most infamous pandemic events in history. It spread across Asia and Europe, decimating a third of the continent’s population during the Middle Ages. The cause was plague ...

The first historically recorded pandemic is believed to have struck the walled city of Jirash, in what is now modern-day ...

Long before COVID-19 swept over the globe, the Plague of Justinian gave rise to widespread upheaval as the opening chapter of the world's first plague pandemic. From 541 to 750 C.E., the bubonic ...

Scientists have discovered how adaptations in a single gene helped the plague survive for hundreds of years. Responsible for the deadliest pandemic in history, the bacterium that causes the plague, ...

Long before the infamous Black Death swept through medieval Europe, killing a third of its population, another strain of the plague bacterium, Yersinia pestis, haunted humanity. This earlier strain ...

A mysterious form of plague that spread across Eurasia thousands of years before the Black Death has finally revealed a crucial clue. Scientists analyzing ancient DNA discovered the bacterium Yersinia ...

Evidence from 13th-century chroniclers and physicians indicates plague may have been involved in epidemics a century before the Black Death, a new study shows. Yersinia pestis, the bacterium that ...

A major volcanic cataclysm may have been ultimately responsible for the spread of the Black Death across Europe in the 1340s. In a lovely example of scientific investigation at its best, researchers ...

“Death wasn’t being responded to as a public health problem,” David France says. “It was dealt with with sniggers. It was left to religious leaders to explain or respond to the epidemic. And they ...