Artists of the 1300s depicted death as the Grim Reaper, a skeleton on horseback whose scythe cut people down. Approximately one - third of the population of Europe died of the deadly disease known as the bubonic plague. The plague began in Asia. Traveling the trade lanes, it infected most of Asia and the Muslim world. Inevitably it reached Europe. In 1347, a fleet of Genoese merchant ships arrived in Sicily carrying a dread cargo. This …showed first 75 words of 295 total…

…showed last 75 words of 295 total…in the Jews, who were blamed for bringing on the plague by poisoning the wells. All over Europe, Jews were driven from their homes or, worse, massacred. The bubonic plague took about four years to reach almost every corner of Europe. In any given community, approximately three-quarters of those who caught the disease died. Before the bubonic plague ran its course, it killed almost 25 million Europeans and many more millions in Asia and North America.