In the middle of the fourteenth century, a terrible and mysterious plague swept across Europe and Asia. One in every three Europeans died during the five years that it terrified the continent. People tried all sorts of ways to avoid catching the Black Death. They carried flowers, burned incense, fired cannons, and rang church bells. They nailed whole families in their homes to try to keep the disease from spreading. Nothing seemed to help. The death rate continued to soar. Finally the plague ran its course, and people stopped dying in large numbers. But the bubonic plague never went away. Every so often, this painful disease breaks out again. Find out how and where this deadly disease traveled, and whether the chances of survival are any better today than they were so many centuries ago.