How the Black Death Set Sail for Europe
Clip: Season 22 Episode 10 | 1m 5sVideo has Closed Captions
In 1347, ships reached Sicily with the Black Death. In a year, it spread across Europe to England.
In 1347, ships from the Black Sea arrived in Sicily carrying an unseen killer. Rats and fleas aboard the grain vessels spread the plague that would become the Black Death. Within months, Italian ports fell. By the next year, the plague spread from the Mediterranean to England.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
SECRETS OF THE DEAD is made possible, in part, by public television viewers.
How the Black Death Set Sail for Europe
Clip: Season 22 Episode 10 | 1m 5sVideo has Closed Captions
In 1347, ships from the Black Sea arrived in Sicily carrying an unseen killer. Rats and fleas aboard the grain vessels spread the plague that would become the Black Death. Within months, Italian ports fell. By the next year, the plague spread from the Mediterranean to England.
Problems playing video? | Closed Captioning Feedback
How to Watch Secrets of the Dead
Secrets of the Dead is available to stream on pbs.org and the free PBS App, available on iPhone, Apple TV, Android TV, Android smartphones, Amazon Fire TV, Amazon Fire Tablet, Roku, Samsung Smart TV, and Vizio.
Buy Now
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipThe ships transporting Crimean grain to Italian ports carried a stowaway as vicious as it was small.
Plague was already circulating in the area around the Black Sea in the 1340s and on ships leaving Crimean ports, rats and fleas infested with plague set sail for Europe.
And some human passengers were already infected.
In September 1347 they arrived in Messina, in Sicily.
That's the introduction of the Black Death into Europe.
That was the other port of entry into Europe.
One by one, Italian port towns and cities fell to the Black Death.
By late 1347, the disease had been reported in Genoa and Venice and all the way to the Middle East.
By the following year, it had spread north through Europe, to Germany, France, and all the way vto England.
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S22 Ep10 | 1m 57s | The haunting journal of Agnolo di Tura reveals the horrors of the Black Plague. (1m 57s)
Could This Be the Black Death’s Earliest Victim?
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S22 Ep10 | 3m 21s | Ancient gravestones in Kyrgyzstan hint the Black Death began long before it reached Europe. (3m 21s)
The Pandemic That Killed Half of Europe
Video has Closed Captions
Clip: S22 Ep10 | 1m 28s | The Black Death may have killed nearly 50 percent of the Europe's population. (1m 28s)
Video has Closed Captions
Preview: S22 Ep10 | 32s | Scientists study medieval bubonic plague victims in hopes of preventing future outbreaks. (32s)
Providing Support for PBS.org
Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorship
Support for PBS provided by:
SECRETS OF THE DEAD is made possible, in part, by public television viewers.