Understanding the Factors that Lead to Pandemics and Their Impact on Spanish and World History

3 credits · Undergraduate

Infectious diseases have had a massive impact on the course of world history. Such diseases can range from local, yet devastating, outbreaks that are geographically contained, like Ebola, to large-scale pandemics that reach near global proportions. Instances of such pandemics include the great plagues of medieval times, the sweeps of sleeping sickness, measles and smallpox, brought on by European colonization of Africa and the Americas, the emergence of HIV-AIDS in the late twentieth century and, most recently, COVID-19 and its truly global disruption in modern day.