One plague killed roughly half of Europe's population in six years

In October 1347, ships carrying the plague docked at Messina, Sicily, and the disease tore across Europe over the next six years. Estimates vary, but historians put the toll at 40-50% of Europe's population, the deadliest pandemic in recorded history. It emptied villages so fast that survivors could suddenly demand higher wages, reshaping European labor and society for generations.

— Barbara W. Tuchman, A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century — Alfred A. Knopf, 1978
Go deeper: get the book →