In February 1692, in the Massachusetts village of Salem, eight young women accused their neighbors of witchcraft. Some historians blame the hysteria on a viral fever spread by insects and birds.

The plague forced Rome’s retreat in the war to recapture its former capital city. The emperor himself was stricken. Constantinople lost 5,000 people each day.

A trade deal with China unleashed one of the deadliest of the great pandemics. Italy was hit especially hard.

A London doctor used a dot map to pioneer the modern science of epidemiology.

Scientists blamed stressed-out bats and their habitat loss for this 21st century pandemic.

Doctors called her the most dangerous woman in America. An immigrant who had worked as a cook, she was New York’s patient zero, passing the fever to 51 people. By year’s end, 20,000 had died.

Charles IV of Spain launched history’s first global immunization campaign. Pathogens from a diseased cow passed arm-to-arm in a human chain from the Canary Islands to the Americas and then on to the Philippines.

Jubilation on steps of the Idaho Statehouse overrode quarantines. Thousands discarded their protective face masks, fever be forgotten!

Great viral clouds of mosquitos beat back American forces. Commanders ordered that no soldier could be excused from combat without a temperature of at least 103°F.

Scientists blamed stressed-out bats and their habitat loss for this 21st century pandemic.