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The deadly outbreak of bubonic plague, also known as the “Black Death,” that struck western Europe in 1347 wiped out more than a third of the population

As an aside and contrary to an ever so popular belief, the children’s nursery rhyme, ‘Ring around the rosie, a pocket full of posies’ did not originated in Europe during the bubonic plague epidemic. There is little evidence to support this theory. The rhyme did not appear in print until 1881, more than 500 years after the fact, rendering it highly unlikely to have originated during the time of the plague. There are also several recorded variants of the rhyme, most of which do not include the same apparent references to the disease.

It was nasty. FYI: That’s when and where the Children’s Rhyme “Ringo Around The Rosy” origenated.