By Berthold Seewald (Die Welt)
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In 1347, a ship from the Genoese trading post of Caffa, in the Crimea, joined the ports of Genoa and Marseille. And he carries a deadly passenger on board: the bubonic plague. From there, the black plague, triggered by the bacillus Yersinia pestis , will ravage Europe and will decimate around a third of its population in less than ten years.
However, this is just the start of the nightmare. For in the centuries that follow, waves of the plague will again sweep across the continent with horrifying regularity. Thus, France will not know a single year of respite - that is to say without any case of plague - between 1348 and 1670. It is in 1665 that the city of London will record the highest number of deaths of the plague: 68,569 victims. During the epidemic of plague which will occur in Vienna during the year 1679, a third of the inhabitants of the Austrian capital, namely some 50,000 people, will perish. And in 1720, the plague will make more than 100,000
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