Know Thyself

The puking flea apocalypse! This is one of the rare events in history where the death toll is constantly being revised HIGHER as new data comes in. By recent estimates, possibly 40% of THE WORLD killed by the Great Plague. What was it like to live during the end of the world? What did the dying -- and those who remained alive -- experience?  How did people understand what was happening? Who did they burn and torture? In this episode are 1st hand accounts of the Black Death. A blow-by-blow recounting of the havoc one particular bacteria has wrought on humanity.  And, or course, the way in which the human imagination is capable to taking a bad situation and turning it into something truly ghastly and despicable. Famine, pestilence, maudlin displays of self-mutilation, cruelty in the guise of piety, and, yes, nobility and heroism.  Welcome to Europe during the Crisis of the Late Middle Ages.   Graphic: Oz by Ian Armstrong