MicroFactzzz#0067 · ☠️ Dark Facts
The Black Death may have wiped out half of Europe in just four years
The plague pandemic of 1347-1351 killed an estimated 30-50% of Europe's population — the highest death toll in the continent's documented history.
Between 1347 and 1351, a wave of plague swept across Europe that historians estimate killed anywhere from 30 to 50 percent of the continent's population at the time.
The disease spread mainly through fleas feeding on rats aboard trading ships — it reached Europe along trade routes from Central Asia via Crimea.
The scale was so massive that in some regions labor shortages became severe enough to permanently reshape the social and economic structure of medieval Europe — some historians link it to a rise in the bargaining power of the peasantry.
The significance: it remains the deadliest event in documented European history by share of population killed — not even a world war has come close to that proportion.
Sources
- General knowledge / encyclopedic sources
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Krulicza Nora
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