Pandemics

From the wave of bubonic plague that became known as the Black Death, to the Spanish Flu pandemic that infected a third of the world's population and left upwards of 50 million dead, we put the escalating coronavirus crisis into historical context...

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Vienna Plague Hospital, 1679. (Getty Images)

What were women’s lives like during the 17th-century plague? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

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Photo by Getty Images

Post pandemic: how the years after the Black Death briefly became a ‘golden age’ for medieval women . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

A Red Cross worker in the United States, 1918

Spanish flu: the virus that changed the world

Women 'take the air' in an attempt to ward off the Spanish Flu

“Far too little, too late”: what happened when Spanish Flu hit Britain?

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Kerri Greenidge, Tom Holland, Suzannah Lipscomb and Michael Wood debate the historical context of 2020

2020: The historians’ verdict . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Dr Edward Jenner, a British physician, performing his first vaccination on James Phipps, a boy of eight, in 1796. (Photo by Getty Images)

The history of vaccination: from Edward Jenner to anti-vaxxers

Covid-19 saw the UK’s universities, such as the University of Glasgow (above), cancel in-person teaching. The logistics of teaching and studying during the pandemic are proving complex. (Photo by Dreamstime)

How Covid-19 is forcing universities to change

Doctor treating a patient, from a 14th-century manuscript. (Photo by DeAgostini/Getty Images)

Elma Brenner on medieval wellbeing: “People in the Middle Ages were absolutely focused on staying healthy”

Clothes infected by the Black Death are burned in medieval Europe, c1340. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Black Death facts: your guide to “the worst catastrophe in recorded history”

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The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

History quiz: how much do you know about the Black Death? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.

Photograph of John Snow in 1856

The Broad Street cholera outbreak: how bad was it and how was it contained?

The effects of the disease known as the Black Death

Black Death quarantine: how did we try to contain the most deadly disease in history?

Photo of flu patients during the First World War

First World War

Q&A Why was the 1918-19 pandemic known as Spanish Flu?

Shoppers crowd a Woolworths store in 1955

Q&A Has there always been panic buying? And when have people panic shopped through history?

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Illustration of Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (Covid-19). (Photo by Alamy)

Coronavirus: what might we learn from pandemics in the past? . This is a premium piece of content available to subscribed users.