295099YD The Black Death was not a singular event,

NOR EVEN THE WORST PLAGUE IN HISTORY!
Móre disastrous epidemics struck America, Australia & the Pacific Islands following the arrival of the first Europeans.
Unbeknown to the explorers & settlers, they brought with them new infectious diseases against which the natives had no immunity.
Up to 90% of the local populations died as a result?! On 5 March 1520 a small Spanish flotilla left the island of Cuba
on its way to Mexico. These ships carried 900 Spanish soldiers along with horses,
firearms and a few African slaves.
One of these slaves,
Francisco de Eguia, carried on his person a far deadlier cargo!
Francisco didn't know it, but somewhere among his trillions of cells a biological time bomb was ticking: the smallpox virus.
After Francisco landed in Mexico the virus began to multiply exponentially within his body, eventually bursting out all over
his skin in a terrible rash. The feverish Francisco was taken to bed in the house
of a Native American Family in the town of Cempoallan.
He infected the family members,
who infected the neighbours.
Within ten days Cempoallan became a graveyard! Refugees spread the disease from Cempoallan to the nearby towns.
As town after town succumbed to the plague, new waves of terrified refugees carried the disease throughout Mexico & beyònd!
The Maya's in the Yucatán Peninsula believed that three evil gods - Ekpetz, Uzannkak & Sojakak -
were flying from village to village at night, infecting people with the disease.
The Aztecs blamed it on the gods Tezcatlipoca & Xipetotec, or perhaps on the black magic of the white people.
Priests & doctors were consulted! They advised prayers, cold baths,
rubbing the body with bitumen & smearing squashed black beetles
on the sores.
Nòthing did hèlp?! Tens of thousands of corpses lay rotting in the streets, without anyone dáring to approach & bury them!
Entire families perished within a few days, & the authorities ordered that the houses were to be collapsed on top of the bodies!
In some settlements half of the population died? In September 1520 this plague had reached the Valley of Mexico,
& in October it entered the gates of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan - a magnificent metropolis of 250.000 people.
Within two months at least a third of the population perished, including also the Aztec emperor Cuitláhuac.
Whereas in March 1520, when the Spanish fleet arrived, Mexico was home to 22 million people,
by the month of December only 14 million were still alive. Smallpox wàs only the fìrst blow.
While the new Spanish masters were busy to enrich themselves & exploiting the natives, deadly waves of flu,
measles & other infectious diseases struck Mexico one after the other, until
in 1580 its population was down
to less than 2 million.

10 okt 2017 - bewerkt op 12 okt 2017 - meld ongepast verhaal
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