Important Events

The notorious plague outbreak known as the Black Death was one of the most epic mass casualty events in human history, as it may have killed off up to one-third of the European population in the 14th century. But if a new study just released by a team of researchers from Denmark and Sweden is correct, this was not the first time that the black plague rampaged through the European countryside to cause a catastrophic loss of life. Based on an analysis of recovered DNA samples from skeletons that were buried approximately 5,000 years ago in Scandinavia, genetic experts from the University of Copenhagen and the University of Gothenburg in Sweden determined that the plague was common in the region