Pandemics can be world-changing events. The aftermath of a pandemic can shape societies and topple empires.

Whether it's flu, smallpox, cholera, or the Bubonic plague, these pandemics have killed more people than all the wars in human history.

However, pandemics weren't always a part of humanity.

There was a first pandemic that caught civilization by surprise,

and the legacy of that pandemic can still be felt in our world today.

Learn more about the Plague of Justinian, the world's first true pandemic on this episode of

Everything Everywhere Daily. everything everywhere daily.

daily.

This episode is brought to you by audible.

This episode is brought to you by audible.com. If you want to do a deep

dive in today's topic, the audio book I'd recommend is Justinian's Flea,

Plague, Empire, and the birth of Europe by William Rosen.

He gives the complete story of the pandemic named after one of Rome's greatest emperors,

which may have killed up to a quarter of the empire's population.

You can get a free one-month trial to Audible

audio books by going to Audible Trial.com slash everything everywhere or

clicking on the link in the show notes. To start this discussion we should define the difference between a pandemic and an epidemic.

An epidemic is a localized outbreak of a disease.

There have been several outbreaks of Ebola in Africa

over the last several decades,

and those would be defined as an epidemic.

Epidemics are usually smaller in scale,

...