Hello, fellow time travellers. It's always a treat to have you with me for the journey through space and time. I wouldn't want to do it on my own and I can't think of anyone better to do it with than all of you.

Before we get started on today's episode, I always say thanks to those who have and

continued to support the podcast series by signing up to my Patreon site.

It's that financial support via Patreon that makes possible everything else that Paul and I do.

So if you're already a member, thank you, thank you, thank you.

If you're not a member yet and you'd like to become a member, then go to Patreon.com, look for me by name, join up, sign up,

and you become part of the family, basically. Like-minded people fascinated by history, curious

about current events and what there is to learn about

dealing with those events by looking back into the past. Questions and answers

competitions. So come along, come and join us. That'll do for the advert. Now it's time to strap yourselves into the time machine

as we set off on the next stop on my love letter to the world. Recorder, microphone, action. Action. beg is on the prowl, ever battling to expand an already vast empire.

Whilst laying siege to the rich trading port of Kaffa,

a deadly plague breaks out amongst those soldiers,

black marks and painful lumps appearing on their faces and bodies.

And in one of the earliest applications of biological warfare in the world, siege catapults

are loaded with the soldiers bloated rotting corpses and fired over the walls into the besieged port.

As the residents flee the city aboard ships, this deadly disease spreads with them.

A spider's web of death

spun across Europe.

The Black Death is here.

Endeavering to understand history in hopes of illuminating the future. I'm Neil Oliver and this is my love letter to the world. Hi Neil. In the last episode it was the early 1300 and we saw Europe begin the intellectual push that would drive the continent forward as Dante

put the final full stop on one of the great masterpieces of medieval literature.

...