the Black Death

(noun)

One of the most devastating pandemics in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75 to 200 million people and peaking in Europe in the years 1348–1350.

Related Terms

Examples of the Black Death in the following topics:

  • The Black Death

    • The Black Death was an infamous pandemic of bubonic plague and one of the most devastating pandemics in human history.
    • When spring arrived, the Italian merchants fled on their ships, unknowingly carrying the Black Death.
    • The peak of the activity was during the Black Death.
    • The Black Death had a profound impact on art and literature.
    • Evaluate the impact of the Black Death on European society in the Middle Ages

  • Trade and Commerce

    • During the late Middle Ages, the increasingly dominant position of the Ottoman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean presented an impediment to trade for the Christian nations of the west, who in turn started looking for alternatives.
    • The chief cities were Cologne on the Rhine River, Hamburg and Bremen on the North Sea, and Lübeck on the Baltic.
    • The crises caused by the Great Famine and the Black Death between 1290–1348 as well as subsequent epidemics produced many challenges for the English economy.
    • In the decades after the disaster, the economic and social issues arising from the Black Death combined with the costs of the Hundred Years War to produce the Peasants Revolt of 1381.
    • The revolt had various causes, including the socio-economic and political tensions generated by the Black Death in the 1340s, the high taxes resulting from the conflict with France during the Hundred Years War, and instability within the local leadership of London.

  • The Hundred Years' War

    • His reign saw vital developments in legislature and government—in particular the evolution of the English parliament—as well as the ravages of the Black Death.
    • Edward III and his son the Black Prince led their armies on a largely successful campaign across France.
    • Hostilities were paused in the mid-1350s for the deprivations of the Black Death.
    • His successor, Charles VI, made peace with Richard II, son of the Black Prince, in 1389.
    • After the invasion of 1419, Henry V and, after his death, his brother John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, brought the English to the height of their power in France, with an English king crowned in Paris.

  • The Last Byzantine Dynasty

    • In addition, the disintegration of the Byzantine Empire allowed the Bulgarians, the Serbs and the various Turcoman emirates of Anatolia to make gains.
    • Although Epirus was initially the strongest of the three Greek states, the Nicaeans were the ones who succeeded in taking back the city of Constantinople from the Latin Empire
    • At the Battle of Meander Valley, a Turkic force was repelled and an earlier assault on Nicaea led to the death of the Seljuk Sultan.
    • In the west, the Latins were unable to expand into Anatolia; consolidating Thrace against Bulgaria was a challenge that kept the Latins occupied for the duration of the Latin Empire.
    • The loss of land in the east to the Turks and in the west to the Bulgarians was complemented by two disastrous civil wars, the Black Death and the 1354 earthquake at Gallipoli, whose destruction and evacuation allowed the Turks to occupy it.

  • Kublai Khan

    • Möngke's death in 1259 led to civil war (often referred to as the Toluid Civil War) between his two younger brothers, Kublai Khan and Ariq Böke.
    • After the death of Möngke in that same year, and the following civil war, Kublai was named the Great Khan and successor of Möngke.
    • The final piece of the puzzle for Kublai was the conquest of the Song Dynasty in southern China.
    • Some historians also speculate that trade was so accessible between the empire and Europe, that it may have contributed to the flow of disease, especially the black plague in the mid-1300s.
    • By the time of Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire had fractured into four separate empires, that were based on administrative zones Genghis had created.

  • Early Life of Muhammad

    • The Black Stone, a sacred object, had been removed to facilitate renovations to the Kaaba.
    • The leaders of Mecca could not agree on which clan should have the honor of setting the Black Stone back in its place.
    • He asked for a cloth and put the Black Stone in its center.
    • The clan leaders held the corners of the cloth and together carried the Black Stone to the right spot; then Muhammad set the stone in place, satisfying all who were present.
    • An illustration from c. 1315 depicting Muhammad's role in re-setting the Black Stone in 605 CE.

  • Scientific Exploration

    • The name Uranus, as proposed by Johann Bode, came into widespread usage after Herschel's death.
    • The first strong evidence against phlogiston theory came from Joseph Black, Joseph Priestley and Henry Cavendish, who all identified different gases that composed air.
    • His treatise condemned torture and death penalty and was a founding work in the field of penology (the study of the punishment of crime and prison management).
    • Some of the current policies impacted by his theories are truth in sentencing, swift punishment and the abolition of death penalty.
    • The name Uranus, as proposed by Johann Bode, came into widespread usage after Herschel's death.

  • Decline of the Gupta Empire

    • Kumaragupta’s son, Skandagupta, assumed the throne upon his father’s death in 455 CE and ruled until c. 467 CE.
    • He is considered the last of the great Gupta rulers before the collapse of the empire.
    • Although victorious, the expenses of the wars against the Hunas drained the empire's resources.
    • The Huna were a Central Asian Xionite tribe that consisted of four hordes: Northern Huna, also known as the Black Huns; Southern Huna, the Red Huns; Eastern Huna, the Celestial Huns; and the White Huns, the Western Huna.
    • The Hephthalites broke through the Gupta military defenses in the northwest in the 480s, during the reign of Budhagupta, and by 500 CE much of the empire in northwest was overrun by the Huna.

  • Empress Maria-Theresa

    • The refusal of Prussia and Bavaria to accept Maria Theresa's rule in 1740, after her father's death, resulted in the War of Austrian Succession (1740-48).
    • Following his recommendation, she made a decree that autopsies would be mandatory for all hospital deaths in the city of Graz, Austria's second largest city.
    • Maria Theresa was devastated by her husband's (Francis I) death.
    • Maria Theresa abandoned all ornamentation, had her hair cut short, painted her rooms black, and dressed in mourning for the rest of her life.
    • She described her state of mind shortly after Francis's death: "I hardly know myself now, for I have become like an animal with no true life or reasoning power."

  • The Aztec in the Colonial Period

    • The Aztec empire was defeated by an alliance between the Spanish and the Confederacy of Tlaxcala.
    • The Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire was one of the most significant events in the Spanish colonization of the Americas.
    • When news reached Cortés of the death of several of his men during the Aztec attack on the Totonacs in Veracruz, he took the opportunity to take Moctezuma captive, Moctezuma allowed himself to be captured as a diplomatic gesture.
    • Due to some horrifying instances of abuse against the indigenous peoples, Bishop Bartolomé de las Casas suggested importing black slaves to replace them (he later repented when he saw the even worse treatment given to the black slaves).
    • Describe the role of the Confederacy of Tlaxcala in the fall of the Aztec Empire