In 430 BC, the city-state of Athens was thriving when the pandemic hit. Thucydides, author of The History of the Peloponnesian War, caught it and described his symptoms. We call it a 'plague', but nobody actually knows what the virus was.
The Black Death
In the 14th century, the bubonic plague from Asia travelled along the Silk Road and reached the Mediterranean. Within five years, it killed between more than a third of the European population.
Cholera
In the 19th century, parts of Asia were devastated by a disease which then entered Europe through Russia. Nobody, from the poorest to the most well-off, was immune to its ravages.
Spanish Flu
We still don't know where the Spanish Flu came from, but it became a pandemic when it reached Europe in 1918. Some estimates put the death toll at more than 50 million people worldwide.
HIV/AIDS
Forty years ago, a mysterious virus emerged in the gay community in the United States. Identified in 1983 by the Institut Pasteur, HIV/AIDS has killed millions of people around the world, and continues to do so...
