Plague reaches Crimea via Mongol siege

1346

Janibeg of the Golden Horde, besieging the Genoese trading post of Caffa, watched plague erupt in his camp. According to one chronicler, the Mongols catapulted infected corpses over the walls - perhaps history's first instance of biological warfare. Genoese ships fled with the contagion in their holds, carrying it through Constantinople and into the Mediterranean.