The Real-Life Horror That Inspired Star Trek’s Most Likeable Villains

The bubonic plague, of course, killed about 50 million people worldwide and drastically reduced the population of Europe (the upper estimate is that 60% of Europeans died).

Eventually, doctors found ways to prevent transmission and treat the plague (which is still present, although quite rare).

This scourge notably caused major changes in the economy (higher wages, because there were now fewer workers to meet demand), and some theories claim that it even reprogrammed our immune system while serving as a form of natural selection.