The causal relationship here is murky. If have a hard time believing that a change in Italian shipping in 1345 was the only thing that allowed the bubonic plague to enter the otherwise hermetically sealed Europe.
The reason for the plague was disastrous health and cleanliness standards.
Long ago when the History Channel was still about History, they did a hypothetical “What if the 10 plagues of Egypt actually happened?” That was surprisingly plausible. I’m getting some vibes of that.
The punchline of that hypothetical was that the hail and the locusts lead to wet grain being pulled into storehouses. A fungus that locusts can carry that is poisonous mouldered in the storehouses. The cultural tradition of giving the firstborn son a double helping may have reached fatal levels of exposure to the toxin, killing enough children to become a myth.
There's a certain 'critical mass' of people and thinkers, as well as decent enough communications (roads, letters) to allow for collaboration, needed to achieve a flowering/growth of knowledge, and that was cut off by (amongst other things) the Black Death:
Alphonse X "The Wise". A Castillian king basically sanctioned a book on board games, from chess to a few less known ones with dice. Enough said. There's tons of difference between the 6th century and the 12th.
This would blow out lots of Anglo-Saxon minds with a very bad depiction of Middle Ages compared to the modern era from Newton. But, IRL, it was all about a gradual modernization of thinking.
People didn't just became modern with the Enlightenment and then the Industrial Revolution. It happened tons of stuff in between.
The causal relationship here is murky. If have a hard time believing that a change in Italian shipping in 1345 was the only thing that allowed the bubonic plague to enter the otherwise hermetically sealed Europe.
The reason for the plague was disastrous health and cleanliness standards.
I also think the collapse of the byzantine empire and the rise of the mongols would have lead to direct trade between the mongols and italians anyway.
Results reported in the journal Communications Earth & Environment [1] submitted to HN [2]
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02964-0
[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46151324
Long ago when the History Channel was still about History, they did a hypothetical “What if the 10 plagues of Egypt actually happened?” That was surprisingly plausible. I’m getting some vibes of that.
The punchline of that hypothetical was that the hail and the locusts lead to wet grain being pulled into storehouses. A fungus that locusts can carry that is poisonous mouldered in the storehouses. The cultural tradition of giving the firstborn son a double helping may have reached fatal levels of exposure to the toxin, killing enough children to become a myth.
While most folks have probably heard of "the" Renaissance:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Renaissance
it was not the first in history:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_of_the_12th_centur...
There's a certain 'critical mass' of people and thinkers, as well as decent enough communications (roads, letters) to allow for collaboration, needed to achieve a flowering/growth of knowledge, and that was cut off by (amongst other things) the Black Death:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_of_the_late_Middle_Ages
Alphonse X "The Wise". A Castillian king basically sanctioned a book on board games, from chess to a few less known ones with dice. Enough said. There's tons of difference between the 6th century and the 12th.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libro_de_los_juegos
This would blow out lots of Anglo-Saxon minds with a very bad depiction of Middle Ages compared to the modern era from Newton. But, IRL, it was all about a gradual modernization of thinking.
People didn't just became modern with the Enlightenment and then the Industrial Revolution. It happened tons of stuff in between.
This is the sort of headline you get when academic research must function as click bait.
There are very few X caused Y statements one can make about historical events in good faith or with good cause.
So the tsunamis of 2004 and 2011 could've caused covid?
Didn't a butterfly cause those tsunamis? :)
Not any old butterfly. Mothra.