Plague of Justinian
The plague of 541-542, also known as the Plague of Justinian, is said to have caused the fall of the Roman Empire. This deadly outbreak has had reoccurrences until 720, and while it is difficult to say exactly how many people died, estimates point to around 50-70 million people. Other estimates claim it caused the death of 25–100 million people over the course of two centuries.
Some say that as many as 5,000 people died of the Plague of Justinian per day, devastating the city of Constantinople as well as various other port cities in the Mediterranean.
As with other cases of the plague, it spread with the help of merchant ships that carried rat and flea infected cargo. In 2013, experts discovered that this occurrence of the plague and the Black Plague of 1347 – 1351 were caused by the same bacterium, Yersinia pestis.
