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Into History.

com. It's October 1347 in the bustling port city of Messina in the kingdom of Sicily.

In the city's harbour, 12 merchant ships arrive after a long voyage from the Black Sea.

A dock worker rushes to greet one of the ships and help unload its cargo, but as he

ventures on board he realizes something is deeply wrong. He finds no one aboard. The dock worker calls out, and eventually a lone sailor comes to meet him.

His face somber. The sailor explains that a mysterious but deadly sickness struck the crew during their voyage,

guides the dock worker below deck, where the remaining members of the ship's crew lay shivering and bedridden.

The dock worker recoils as the of the ship's crew lay shivering and bedridden.

The dock worker recoils as the ill passenger shifts beneath their blankets, revealing bodies covered

in black oozing boils.

As their sores are revealed, the scent of rotting flesh hits the dock worker and he

stumbles back in disgust he's never seen or smelled a sight so gruesome. As fast as he can, the dock worker flees the ship and rushes to alert the city's official

of his horrifying discovery.

He's confident that the sick arrivals, with their strange black bumps and odor of death or a bad omen for the town.

And he is correct.

He does not yet understand the extent of the devastation to come.

He has no way of knowing that the ship's mystery illness will

soon ravage the entire continent, unleashing one of the most devastating

pandemics the world has ever seen.

...