The Black Death was a vast epidemic that spread throughout Europe from 1346 to 1353, killing approximately one-third of the entire European population (Medieval World 56). Although historians are not entirely sure of its origin, the Black Death spread rapidly across both Europe and Asia, with death tolls rising rapidly. The plague also had unusual and deadly symptoms, causing “panic everywhere, with men and women knowing no way to stop death except to flee from it” (Kohn 28). The chaos created by the malevolent force of the Black Death impacted European society as a whole. Despite the scope of the Black Death, we know surprisingly little about it (Cartwright and Biddiss 38); however, historians have presented numerous theories about its origin and spread, discovered records of deaths, symptoms, and other characteristics, and found political records, art, and other documents reminiscent of the plague and its impact on Europe. During the early 1320s, the bacterium Yersinia pestis (Zahler 22-25), which causes the bubonic plague, broke out in the Gobi Desert along trade routes, perhaps due to the previous ice age that led to the discovery of prehistoric bacteria (Nox ). The plague then traveled rapidly through merchants along the Silk Road and the Black Sea, spreading to both China and perhaps India (Zahler 31-32). In 1347 the plague reached parts of Sicily, Marseille, Alexandria and Constantinople through trade, starting the period of the Black Death in Europe (138-141); however, some documents have also shown that the plague spread from Russia in Genoa to Italy, France, and Germany in 1348 through the Tartar War (Cartwright and Biddiss 36-37). The Black Death then continued to spread throughout Europe until 1352 when the period of......middle of paper......(53) began.Works CitedByrne, Joseph P. The Black Death. Wesport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 2004. Cartwright, Frederick F. and Michael D. Biddis, George Child. Illness and history. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1972. Corbishley, Mark. The medieval world. New York: Peter Frederick Books, 1993. Kohn, George Child. Encyclopedia of plague and pestilence from ancient times to the present day. New York: Facts on File, 2001. Macdonald, Fiona. The plague and medicine in the Middle Ages. Milwaukee, Wisconsin: World Almanac Library, 2006. Medieval World. 1. Danbury, Connecticut: Brown Patworks Limited, 2001. Nox, E. L. Skip. "The Middle Ages: The Black Death". boisestate.edu. Boise State University, 1995. Web. 13 February 2012. .Zahler, Diane. The Black Death. Minneapolis: Twenty-First Century Books, 2009.