The pandemic helped Europeans colonize and develop the newly vacated areas, forever altering the histories of the Americas, their European conquerors, and the global economy. One of these was smallpox, a contagious disease that kills around 30% of those infected.ĭuring this period, smallpox claimed the lives of approximately 20 million people, close to 90% of the population, in the Americas. After a painting by GG Melingue.Įuropeans introduced a number of new diseases when they first arrived in the continents of the Americas in 1492. Undated illustration depicting English physician Edward Jenner's first smallpox vaccination, performed on James Phipps in 1796. Reactions to the plague also included an upsurge in bigotry and scapegoating, with more instances of heightened prejudice and even pogroms against minorities including Jews and Roma. Workers had more work opportunities, and social mobility increased, while there was also a short-lived moratorium on warfare.Ĭulturally, the cataclysm prompted an increase in mysticism as so much suffering challenged the religious dominance of the Roman Catholic Church. Other results of the pandemic, known later as the Black Death, was the beginning of the decline of serfdom as so many people had died that the survivors' standard of living actually increased. It likely killed greater numbers in Asia, especially China, where it is thought to have originated. European population levels took over 200 years to return to their level from before 1347. Image from the Toggenburg Bible (1411) of plague victims suffering from boils.īetween 13, bubonic plague spread throughout Europe, killing approximately 25 million people. Ultimately, we know how bad it could have been: half of the world died, the Roman Empire was never united again, and the Dark Ages began. As Justinian was in the process of reuniting the eastern and western halves of the Roman empire when the plague hit, it has even been blamed as the true end of that era. The traditional narrative of this pandemic was that trade largely ceased and the empire was weakened, allowing other civilizations to reconquer previously Byzantine lands in the Middle East, Northern Africa, and parts of Asia. The Justinian plague definitely happened, but researchers are still poring over the evidence as to just how bad it was, about 1,500 years ago. Now known as the Plague of Justinian, this pandemic is thought to have killed between 30 million and 50 million people, perhaps equal to as much as half of the world's population at the time. The reign of Justinian I, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire in the 6th century, was hampered by an outbreak of bubonic plague. Justinian I (483 - 565 AD) ruled the Byzantine (aka Eastern Roman) Empire, and reconquered much of the Western Roman Empire before losing it again.
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