Fierce and widespread outbreak of plague, probably bubonic and pneumonic, that ravaged Europe during the 14th century. The epidemic originated in Asia and was transmitted to Europeans in 1347 when a Turkic army besieging a Genoese trading post in the Crimea catapulted plague-infested corpses into the town. It spread from the Mediterranean ports and ravaged all of Europe between 1347 and 1351.
Renewed outbreaks occurred in 1361–63, 1369–71, 1374–75, 1390, and 1400. Towns and cities were more heavily hit than the countryside, and whole communities were sometimes destroyed. Much of Europe's economy was devastated. About one-third of the European population, or a total of 25 million people, died in the Black Death.
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