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...

Vienna Plague Hospital, 1679. (Getty Images)

What were women’s lives like during the 17th-century plague?

Premium

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?

Premium

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

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

Premium

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?

Premium

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.