Messina, Sicily, Italy
ESTIMATEDDate confidence: ESTIMATEDA target, not a fixed dateHow firmly the source words the date: confirmed, scheduled, estimated, delayed or unverified.Show all ESTIMATED pins65% CONFIDENCEOverall confidence: 65%How well the pin's source and references back up its dates.Weighted average of how firmly 2 references, the source included, support the pin's start and end times; a reference counts half as much for every 180 days older than the newestShow all pins from 50% to 74% confidence
The sources agree on the month, not the day: the plague ships are recorded as reaching Messina in October 1347, so the pin covers that month rather than claiming a date.[1]Genoese galleys carrying plague from the Black Sea put in at Messina in Sicily, and the disease went ashore with them. Over the next seven years it killed perhaps a third of Europe - up to 50 million people - and took two centuries to be made good.
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