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The Spread of the Plague in Europe, 1346 - 1353
A map illustrating the rapid spread of the 14th-century plague pandemic commonly known as the "Black Death", across Europe and the Middle East. The second such pandemic (after the 541 - 549 outbreak during the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian) the plague arrived from Central Asia and quickly traveled on merchant vessels carrying grain and furs from the Italian Black Sea colonies Kaffa and Tana along dense and interwoven sea and land routes to reach in just a few years almost every community on the continent. In its wake, it is estimated, that the Black Death killed 25 million people, or about a third of the continent's population.
