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20th Century’s Deadliest Disasters

Khalid Elhassan October 26, 2020 32 min

1976 Tangshan earthquake - Tangshan — A bridge destroyed by the Tangshan Earthquake. China Underground

12. The Black Death’s Tragic Origins Trace Back to Thousands of Years Before it Struck

Spread of The Black Death. Arc GIS Story Maps

The tragic pandemic that came to be known as the Black Death first appeared in Mongol-ruled China and Central Asia in the 1330s. Traveling along the Silk Road with merchants and Mongol armies, the disease took about fifteen years to reach Europe in 1347. However, although the plague itself first erupted in China, the culprit bacteria might have originated in Europe, thousands of years earlier.

In 2018, researchers found evidence of Yersinia pestis in a Swedish tomb dating back to 3000 BC. It may have caused a devastating plague thousands of years ago that led to the Neolithic Decline three millennia before Christ, when Europe’s population took a nosedive. It also caused Justinian’s Plague, a sixth-century pandemic that, as seen further down this list, rivaled the Black Death in lethality and devastation.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.