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In this episode of Invisible Iceberg, AccuWeather Network Chief Meteorologist Bernie Rayno and AccuWeather Founder & Executive Chair Dr. Joel Myers uncover the chilling story of the Black Death: the deadliest pandemic in history. Discover how it began and quickly changed Europe forever.
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00:00Welcome to Invisible Iceberg. I'm Bernie Raynaud. On today's show, we uncover the chilling story
00:08of the Black Death, the deadliest pandemic in history. Discover how it began and quickly
00:15changed Europe forever. Plus, we detail the devastating impact this plague left on society,
00:22sparking cultural shifts and changing the course of civilization. And we take a closer look at
00:29some of the deadliest pandemics in history, from past to present. It all starts now on Invisible
00:36Iceberg. The year was 1348. A monstrous bacteria known as the Black Death descended upon Europe and
00:52Asia. It began when 12 shifts from the Black Sea docked at the Sicilian port Messina. Their
00:59decks filled with sailors either dead or writhing in agony, and their bodies marred by black oozing
01:06boils. This raging pandemic spread rapidly, killing off nearly half of Europe's population in just
01:14five years, up to 200 million people. So many died that it took two centuries for the world's
01:21population to return to pre-plague levels. It's just one of the true and fascinating stories in
01:28the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather Shaped History. Joining us right now is
01:33Accu, the founder and executive chair and author of the book, Invisible Iceberg, When Climate and Weather
01:39Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers. Dr. Joel, thanks for joining us today.
01:43My pleasure.
01:44All right. Well, you know what? Just recently got through a pandemic, of course, COVID-19,
01:50but there was a much worse pandemic that I think everybody has heard of. It's called the Black
01:55Death. It is interesting because we have a lot of statistics on the Black Death. We even know when
02:00it arrived on the British shoreline. We know the date it arrived. May 8th, 1348 is what your book said,
02:09that it arrived on the British shoreline. It's amazing we know the exact date of that.
02:12And it came from Pakistan and was a result, again, of weather and climate change, not a long-term
02:20change, but drought and heat. And as a result of that, there wasn't much plants available. A lot
02:29of the crops died, the food. And so the gerbils died out because they didn't have food. And so the
02:35fleas that normally bit the gerbils couldn't bite them. So they started biting humans. And that
02:42caused the Black Death, a horrible disease that killed a lot of people. It was devastating,
02:49killed 25% of the world's population before it died out. And perhaps as many as 50% of the people
02:59in parts of Europe. In fact, in the UK, it's conceivable that three quarters of some cities
03:05were wiped out. The whole British population fell by more than 50%, as much as 65%.
03:12And in your book, it even showed the curve in the population across Europe. And according
03:19to your book, so many people died, it took two centuries, two centuries for the world population
03:24levels to return to pre-plague levels. The numbers are frightening on how many people died.
03:32They are. And you compare it to, of course, the Spanish flu.
03:35Right.
03:36Spanish flu, a little more than 100 years ago, World War I, 1918, 4% of the world's population.
03:44COVID, one quarter of 1%. One quarter of 1%. So the Black Plague, for every person that died
03:53from COVID, 100 people died in the Black Plague. And of course, it was a horrible death. So
03:59just think about that impact. And it had a tremendous impact on civilization and so many things. And
04:06we'll talk about that. But it was all triggered by a weather event in another part of the world.
04:11And the Black Plague actually, we believe, may have been used as biological warfare for the very
04:18first time. Explain.
04:19Well, it was a battle in Crimea. And the troops that were attacking this fort, it was pretty well
04:27insulated and was able to defend itself. And it looked like it might go on for a long time. And
04:31the soldiers were dying from the Black Plague. And so the leader decided to catapult the dead bodies
04:39into the fort. And now the people, the defenders, the people living behind these walls, were now
04:46getting the Black Plague and suffering, and then were overrun because of, so that was the first case
04:53we know of, of biological warfare.
04:56Were there any kind of measures to prevent the spread of the disease? I understand Italy started
05:03doing something of any ships coming into their port had to wait 40 days. Yeah, it's interesting
05:09because you may remember during COVID, they required ships. I don't know if it was 40 days,
05:15but they were parked and the people were embargoed there. But 40 days, that's where the word quarantine
05:21came from. 40 and quarantine, obviously quarter or four. Quarantine is associated with the word
05:28quarantine. And so the word quarantine really came from that 40 day isolation. They knew at that time
05:37that it spread from person to person. And to try and isolate people, it was the first attempt to try
05:43and slow the spread. Thanks, Joe. Very fascinating story. So far. We'll talk again in just a few minutes.
05:51Here with more perspective is Dr. Sharon DeWitt, professor and biological anthropologist at the
05:57University of Colorado, who has extensively studied the medieval Black Death. Thanks for joining us
06:03today. Thank you for having me. All right. Who was most likely to die during the Black Death? And why?
06:12Based on work that's been done in England, using human skeletal remains, what we have evidence of is
06:19that people who were already in poor health, by the time the Black Death arrived, they were more likely
06:26to die than their healthier peers during the epidemic. And we also have evidence that people
06:32who experienced malnutrition during childhood, even if it was decades prior to the Black Death,
06:37they also experienced higher risks of death during the Black Death. From what we know from some
06:43historical documents from England and Italy and some other contexts, is that people who were
06:49impoverished suffered higher risks of death compared to wealthier individuals. And in the Netherlands,
06:55women faced higher risks than men did. And in terms of why people might have been at higher risk of
07:03death because they had already poor health conditions, we know that immune competence is very tightly linked
07:10to things like nutrition and episodes of disease exposure. So people who had these poor health histories
07:16were just vulnerable in general to many things, including this new disease.
07:20How did the Black Death affect daily life for the people who lived through it?
07:24So the outcomes in terms of people's daily experiences would have varied in different areas.
07:31So in England, what was happening prior to the Black Death was population growth that originally had been
07:39supported by really good agricultural production during years of very good climatic conditions.
07:44populations were getting very large, and there was increasing social inequality, lots of people living subsistence
07:53existences, living at or below the poverty line. Then the Black Death arrived in England in 1348,
08:00killed approximately 2 million people in about two years. And as a result of that, in the aftermath of the Black Death,
08:06there was a severe shortage of laborers across the country.
08:10And because of that shortage of laborers, which was produced by the Black Death itself, those people who had
08:16survived and their children, they were able to negotiate for higher wages, they were able to negotiate for
08:24payments in kind from employers, so things like delicious foods and good housing and luxury items,
08:33things that were not available to the general public prior to the epidemic in general.
08:37So in England, what we see is evidence that standards of living improved for people overall,
08:44and that there were decreases in the experiences of high-status and lower-status people.
08:52What lasting changes did the plague trigger in society, labor, or class structure?
08:58We do see perhaps not a breakdown of pre-existing social hierarchies,
09:04but a lessening in the differences of people's daily experiences across social strata.
09:09Another thing that happened, again, because of this massive shortage of laborers after the Black Death,
09:15was that all people who were capable of working had greater economic opportunities. And that was
09:21particularly true for women. So after the Black Death, women were able to move into jobs that had not
09:27been available to them prior to the epidemic. It allowed for a little bit more independence.
09:32There is some thought that perhaps this increase in economic opportunities for women
09:39actually led to a change in marital patterns, at least in places like England. So lots of people
09:46delaying the age at which they get married, a lot of people choosing not to get married. And that's
09:52a big change for a society. There's lots of things that are all connected to one another
09:56that are basically tied to this decline or drop in populations that were incredibly interesting and did have
10:06very long-term effects.
10:08Dr. Sharon DeWitt, professor and biological anthropologist at the University of Colorado,
10:14Boulder. Thanks for joining us again today.
10:17Thank you so much for having me.
10:18Coming up, how weather and climate fueled some of the most devastating pandemics in history.
10:26But next, from new social structures to the rise of religious movements,
10:31we delve into the profound impacts of the Black Death across Europe.
10:48Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg. I'm Bernie Ray. Now we're back with Accu with the founder and
11:07executive chair and author of the book Invisible Iceberg, when climate and weather shaped history,
11:12Dr. Joel Myers. You know, we're talking about the Black Death and of course, recent memory,
11:17COVID-19, and how it impacted all of our lives on a daily basis for years. But when you look at the
11:26Black Death and compare it to COVID-19, there's really no comparison, is there?
11:32That's true. But we all have the COVID-19 in our mind, what it did to our families, culturally,
11:39work, and all those things that it did to the economy. And you look back at this Black Death
11:45with much less ways to deal with things, no technology and so on. And you look at the
11:52death toll. So COVID-19 killed one quarter of one percent of the world population. The Black Death
11:58killed 25 percent, a hundred times as much. And in some cities, almost the whole city was wiped out
12:05a thousand times as much. So it's hard to us to imagine the devastation and the impact and the
12:12upheavals that were caused. And the Grim Reaper came out of it. I mean, it had a tremendous impact
12:17on disrupting people's, what they had thought life was about and their values. And it disrupted
12:25religion and the church and the impact on how society was stratified. You know, it led to the
12:33the rise of the middle class. It led to Protestantism. It led to all kinds of cultural and religious
12:40changes that really transformed society and culture in many parts of the world.
12:48In fact, it led to a movement called the Flagellant Movement. Explain.
12:53People who believed that, I guess, was a result of sin. I mean, people were being punished
12:59with the Black Plague somehow. And so they beat themselves and they went around and beat
13:05themselves and encouraged other people to beat themselves up to the point of terrible pain
13:11and so on. It was really strange as you think about it and led to persecution. Any so-called
13:17non-believers, gypsies, Jews, anybody that didn't fit into a narrow corridor of what they thought
13:25people should be and believing in. And so it caused all kinds of those type of disruptions
13:31and persecution. It led to many of the Jews leaving certain countries and going to Eastern
13:38Europe and all kinds of other shifts in culture and society.
13:44And it's my understanding that the Black Plague, it struck very quickly. You came right in.
13:51You started with a fever and then all of the other symptoms that you talked about. And you could go
13:56from healthy to deceits very quickly. In a matter of a couple of days. Yeah. And it struck any age.
14:04Mm-hmm. And it doesn't matter if you're a royalty or a commoner. It was just devastating. Of course,
14:12the health facilities we have today to treat with some of these diseases didn't exist. And it was horrible.
14:19It had just a dramatic effect on society from top to bottom. And just think about it. Some families,
14:27a dozen people, a couple of dozen people, it was one person left. And so just think about the impact
14:33it had on people. And it did take some time to spread across the globe. Not necessarily when we
14:40talk about the spread of it. Not person to person, but from one area to another, just simply because
14:45it took longer for people to travel from point A to point B. Yeah. Today, you get on a plane, you could be
14:51anywhere in the world in 24 hours. It took 15 years, basically, for it to spread from where it originated
14:59in Pakistan to England. But once it got to a place, the spread was very fast from one person to another.
15:07It certainly interrupted or changed culture in many instances. But did it have an effect on the
15:15Renaissance? Yeah, it probably led to a complete transformation in a positive way over time
15:23following that. Because labor was, in short, was wildly available and was not valued. And the workers,
15:3290, 95% of people were paid the lowest wage possible just to barely survive. Before now,
15:39there was a shortage of workers. They were worth more. And so, and also, some of the peasants inherited
15:45land from others because it died off. And all of a sudden, land ownership was more widespread.
15:52And the middle class arose. People had then more time to think. And education and all kinds of things
16:00then followed. And of course, we didn't have the modern medicines or really any kind of techniques
16:06to fight this. It must have just been a horrific time to be alive during that period, just watching,
16:15you know, people literally dying all around you. Dying all around you and wondering if you're
16:20going to get it. Next. Yeah.
16:21You're going to be next because once it's struck, I mean, you might be gone in 48, 72 hours and in a
16:28horrible, suffering way. And throughout your book, as we look at how weather and climate and weather
16:35shaped history, it always seems to be when something changes quickly. And then the downstream response,
16:43something this quick, the downstream response last years. And it takes years and centuries to get over.
16:51It took 200 years for the world's population to get back to where it was. It was all triggered by
16:56this drought, which killed off the plants in Pakistan, this heat and drought and set in motion
17:02chain reaction, which was devastating to humanity in the short term. In the long term, after all the
17:10suffering was over, it may have led to progress for humanity, which might have been delayed hundreds
17:17of years if this hadn't happened. So it's amazing to look at all different sides of these type of
17:24events that are often triggered by a change in the weather or the climate patterns.
17:29I want to thank Accu, the founder and executive chair and author of the book, Invisible Iceberg,
17:34When Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers, for joining us today. It's a fascinating,
17:39fascinating story, Joel. Thanks very much, Bernie. Thank you.
17:42All right. Up next, from the bubonic plague to COVID, find out how weather and climate helped these
17:48pandemics spread.
18:03Welcome back to Invisible Iceberg. I'm Bernie Ray now. We often think of plagues as ancient history,
18:10but over the last 200 years, the world has faced several modern pandemics, many fueled by weather
18:16and climate. In the 1800s, a global bubonic plague began in China. Drought and flooding helped the
18:23disease spread from rats to people. It traveled trade routes to India, Africa, Australia, and even
18:29North America. More than 10 million people died, and it led to the first widespread use of quarantine
18:35and public health tracking. In 1918, the Spanish flu swept through countries fighting World War I.
18:43Cold weather, overcrowded trenches, and global troop movements help it spread quickly. Estimates range
18:49from 50 to 100 million deaths, making it one of the deadliest pandemics in history.
18:56And in late 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic emerged. Though its origins remain understudy,
19:02global travel in crowded cities helped the virus spread rapidly worldwide, leading to millions of
19:08deaths. Vaccines were developed at record speed and saved millions of lives. But the virus is still
19:15with us, evolving in the new variants. From weather to war to travel, the forces that drove past pandemics
19:22are still with us today.
19:24I want to thank AccuWeather founder and executive chair and author of the book Invisible Iceberg When
19:29Climate and Weather Shaped History, Dr. Joel Myers, for joining us today. And a big thanks to all of
19:34you for watching. If you have a question or comment, send us an email at questions at accuweather.com.
19:40For more information and to get your copy of Invisible Iceberg When Climate and Weather Shaped
19:45History by Dr. Joel Myers, go to invisibleiceberg.com. And we look forward to seeing you next time.
19:54We'll see you next time.
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