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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

5. People Eventually Adapted to the Tragic Consequences of History’s Greatest Plague

Illustration from the medieval Liber Chronicarum, depicting skeletons rising from the grave for the dance of death. Live Science

Take the experience of the world’s reaction to Covid-19, and multiply it many times over, to get an idea of how contemporaries felt about and reacted to the Black Death. The shock of a plague that wiped out up to two-thirds of the population – which is what the Black Death did – was great, to say the least. The economy contracted sharply, as trade came to a standstill, and wars came to a halt. However, people are adaptable, and adapt to the tragic just as they adapt to everything else.

Medieval people soon adjusted to the Black Death, grew accustomed to the plague, and took its frequent recurrences in stride. The immediate reaction to the first and deadliest wave was only temporary: the dead died, but life went on for the survivors. Within a few years, trade had resumed, the economy picked up, and the survivors went back to waging wars and settling their disputes and differences by killing each other.

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.