The Plague of Justinian: The Pandemic That Broke an Empire

<p>At the height of its power, the Byzantine Empire was burying ten thousand people a day. Bodies filled the towers of Constantinople's walls. The emperor himself lay stricken. And fourteen centuries later, DNA from the victims' bones revealed the killer's name — the very same one that would return as the Black Death.</p><p>August Mercer traces the first great pandemic in recorded history: how it arrived on a grain ship, how it may have ended the ancient world, and why almost no one remembers it. This is Six Feet of History — five minutes of the past they'd rather you forget.</p><p><em>Follow for a new story every day. A Dark Whisper Studios production.</em></p>