The Bubonic Plague, also known as the "Black Death", was the worst disease in history to hit Europe. It was in full swing in the early 1300s. The origins of the plague can also be traced back to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. While in the desert it did not have a population large enough or dense enough to spread completely. The cause of the sudden surge in infections and deaths has never been fully identified. What historians think happened is that from the Gobi it spread in every direction because of the trade routes that were established at the time of the spread. What many people don't realize is that the first major area affected by the bubonic plague was actually China. During the 1330s the bubonic plague spread throughout China. The reason why it spread to European countries is that Italian traders regularly made trips to and from China to trade their unique items. The plague arrived in Europe in the form of bacteria that resided in rat-riding fleas that hid on merchant ships as they made their long journey back to Europe. Once the ships would dock and start unloading their cargo, the rats would be able to leave the ship and start traveling through European cities spreading the plague like wildfire because those infected fleas that were doing the Hitchhiking host rats could now travel to humans or to other animals and finally to humans. Then, once the flea left the rat for another host animal, the rat would die and the flea would carry the disease to a new animal. When a flea found a human to become its new host, it would jump on him and bite him. Their bites would have mixed the harmless bacterium with the blood of the human host, ... middle of paper ... this disease could be classified as one of, if not the most devastating, rapidly spreading diseases. the world has ever experienced. In thirteen hundred alone it will reduce the world population by twenty-five million people. This disease has been responsible for the deaths of a total number of people between seventy-five and two hundred million people worldwide, making this disease certainly one of the deadliest incidents in human history. With all the lives and all the torment this disease has caused, people can still recover from it. It devastated the European continent so much that it took about one hundred and fifty years to fully recover. Then came the even longer process of restoring cities and restoring people's trust and faith in the trade routes and the merchants who trade and set up shop on these same routes..