Pandemics

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

Coronavirus: a historical perspective

The reconcilliation between Thomas Becket and Henry II. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

General History

From the handshake to the high-five: a brief history of gestures

Immigrant children are examined by a city health officer upon arrival at the battery from Ellis Island during a Typhus scare, c1911. (Image by Bettmann/Getty Images)

A short history of quarantine

Wartime evacuees wash their hands

“The very sight of her hands did almost turn my stomach”: a brief history of hand-washing

Did medieval people take baths? This 15th-century illustration would suggest so – and shows a man climbing out of a tub. Medieval doctors prescribed bathing as a cure for conditions ranging from bladder stones to melancholy. (Photo by Bridgeman)

The (not so) stinky Middle Ages: why medieval people were cleaner than we think

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

Medieval medicine

Virus H1N1

Could flu really kill thousands again?

Paul Morland. (Photo by Frank Monks)

Books interview with Paul Morland: “Even the Spanish flu pandemic wasn’t enough to stop population growth”

Screen Shot 2018-07-27 at 13.35.28

An introduction to the Black Death

A 14th-century Flemish illustration depicting the burying of plague victims in coffins in Tournai in 1349. (Photo by Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy Stock Photo)

Black Death: “Oh father, why have you abandoned me?”

A contemporary pictorial depiction of the Great Plague.

The Black Death: the historians’ view

Podcast Website large Katherine Arnold

The Spanish Flu pandemic

Chinese plague

Q&A What was the Third Plague pandemic?

250x175xpodcastP20logoP202013P20250x175_16.jpeg.pagespeed.ic_.IKv3ONLJIe-4c4f8d0

The Black Death and Tudor adventurers

The Black Death, the effects of which are pictured in this medieval miniature, took little more than seven years to wipe out around half of mankind. (DeAgostini/Getty Images)

History explorer: the catastrophe of the Black Death