In the 1300s, a third of the population of Europe died of plague carried by rat-borne fleas, shocking the medieval world to its foundations. "Very rarely," award-winning author Charles Mee writes, "does a single event change history by itself. Yet an event of the magnitude of the Black Death could not fail to have had an enormous impact." Here, in this short-form book, is the counterintuitive story of the plague and how, despite the horrible suffering it created, it actually opened people's minds to the possibilities of science and human creativity.