The Dance of Death: Bubonic Plague Outbreaks Quiz

The first major outbreak of bubonic plague recorded in history, the Plague of Justinian ravaged the Byzantine Empire. Estimates of the dead range from 15-100 million people. The plague was first reported in Egypt in 541, and was spread to Constantinople and the rest of the Empire via grain ships.

This was the first outbreak of what historians call the "First Plague Pandemic", with outbreaks lasting until 767.

The second great outbreak of the bubonic plague recorded, this epidemic killed an unknown number of victims in the city of Rome and surrounding areas.The disease probably came to the city on grain ships from Egypt, as Rome was trying to build up grain stores after floods had damaged many of the city's granaries in the winter of 589.

The first recorded outbreak of bubonic plague in the British Isles, the disease lasted for 25 years and progressed from the south of England into Scotland and on to Ireland. The death toll for this incident is unknown. Contemporary writers blamed the disease on a solar eclipse and an earthquake, but historians surmise that it arrived on merchant ships from France.

The Black Death, first occurring in Italian port cities in 1346, spread throughout Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa and by 1353 had killed some 50 million people, possibly 50% of the European population. This was the beginning of the "Second Plague Pandemic", as the disease had been more or less dormant since the 770s.

The main carriers of the disease were the fleas that lived on rats that infested every ship in those days.

This incidence of the plague swept through Spain and the Iberian Peninsula, killing up to 700,000 people. A continuation of the second plague pandemic, the disease was most likely brought to Spain by trading ships from the Mediterranean.

Thought to have originated in France, this outbreak of plague was brought to Northern Italy by mercenary soldiers who had been fighting in the Thirty Year's War. The death toll is estimated to be as high as one million people.

Beginning in Shanxi Province in 1633, the plague reached Beijing by 1641. The outbreak coincided with a civil war in the country, with the result that the weakened Ming forces could not resist the rebels and Beijing fell in 1644. The plague lessened in intensity and was gone by 1645. It is unknown how the outbreak began.

The last great outbreak of the plague in the British Isles, this incident is famous as it was well documented by diarist Samuel Pepys. The disease killed more than 100,000 people in London alone, and ended with another calamity, the Great Fire of London, in 1666. The disease is thought to have arrived in England via Flemish merchant ships docking at southern English ports.

Beginning in Baghdad in 1772, this outbreak spread throughout the Persian Empire and even as far as Bombay (Mumbai), India. A particularly virulent strain of the disease, the plague, while lasting for less than two years, killed as many as two million people. It has been surmised that the plague came to Baghdad via trading caravans from Central Asia.

The last major outbreak of the bubonic plague began in China in 1855. It soon spread to India, and then around the entire world, causing an estimated 15 million deaths by 1960, when the World Health Organization declared the outbreak inactive. The disease was endemic in areas of Yunnan, China, and was spread to the outside world by increased trade and migration of human populations in the 19th century.

India was the hardest hit by this pandemic, with as many as 10 million deaths recorded by 1960.