The term plague is usually defined as a pestilence, an epidemic disease causing a high rate of mortality. Plagues of disease are a serious factor in the development of human civilization, impacting and altering the course of wars, migrations, population growth, urbanization, and cultural development. The term carries such extreme connotations that it is often synonymous with a "calamity", projecting an image of a disasterous evil or affliction.

During the overwhelming disease outbreaks of the Middle Ages, the single word "plague" became strongly identifed with bubonic plague, the virulent contagious febrile disease caused by the bacillus Yersinia pestis, often known as the Black Death. This disease, which is spread by fleas from rodents, including rats and some species of mice to human beings, reached epidemic and even pandemic proportions during the history of Asia and Europe, disrupting civilizations and altering the course of human affairs. Disease brought terror and panic in crowded cities, decimating populations like a visitation of the gods. In the New World, first contact with Europeans brought similar overwhelming pandemics of measles and smallpox, though not of bubonic plague, that led to the a drastic drop in population and the collapse of American cultures.

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See also
Bubonic plague
Influenza Pandemic of 1918 or Spanish Flu
Plague (disambiguation)
Population history of American indigenous peoples
Yersinia pestis
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Bubonic plague outbreaks
Famous outbreaks of bubonic plague examined in individual entries:

Great Plague of Athens (430-427 BC)
causal agent: bubonic plague/smallpox/measles/typhus/anthrax?
Antonine Plague (165 – 180)
causal agent: smallpox/measles?
Plague of Cyprian (250),
causal agent: smallpox/measles?
Plague of Justinian (541 – 542)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Plague of Constantinople (747-748)
The "Black Death" of 1347 – 50:
Great Plague of England (1348-1350)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Ireland (1348-1351)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Scotland (1348-1350)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Russia (1349-1353)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Iceland (1402-1404)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Milan (1629-1631)
aka Italian Plague of 1629-1631.
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of London (1664-1665)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Great Plague of Vienna (1679-1680's)
causal agent: bubonic plague
Plague Riot in Moscow (1771)
causal agent: bubonic plague
The Third Pandemic, originated in China (1855)
causal agent: bubonic plague