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60 free Bubonic Plague trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This bubonic plague trivia quiz covers the disease itself and the three pandemics it drove. The science questions ask what causes it, which flea carries it, where the buboes appear, how quickly it kills without treatment and which antibiotics stop it today. The history questions move from the Plague of Justinian and the siege of Caffa through the Black Death's toll on Europe, the birth of the word quarantine, the Great Plague of London and the 1894 Hong Kong outbreak where the bacterium was finally isolated. Along the way you will meet Procopius, Boccaccio, Samuel Pepys and Daniel Defoe, the villagers of Eyam, the beaked plague doctor, the Chinese Exclusion Act, Unit 731's flea bombs and the modern hotspots of Madagascar, Congo and Peru where plague still circulates. Difficulty runs from easy to expert and is shown on every question. Every answer was checked against a reference page and each question carries its citation. Try our medieval history and pandemics quizzes next.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which bacterium causes bubonic plague?
Yersinia pestis
It was originally named Pasteurella pestis and was renamed in 1944 after its discoverer.
Q 02How many types of plague does the bacterium cause, depending on the route of infection?
Three
Bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic, depending on whether the bacteria settle in the lymph nodes, blood or lungs.
Q 03What is the swollen, painful lymph node that gives bubonic plague its name called?
A bubo
They usually appear in the groin, armpit or neck nearest the flea bite and can grow until they burst.
Q 04The word "bubonic" comes from a Greek word meaning what?
Groin
The buboes most commonly appear in that area because flea bites are usually on the legs.
Q 05Which insect species is the most effective transmitter of bubonic plague?
The Oriental rat flea
Xenopsylla cheopis regurgitates infected blood into its bite because the bacteria clog its gut.
Q 06How long after exposure do flu-like symptoms of bubonic plague typically develop?
One to seven days
Fever, headache and vomiting come first, followed by the swollen nodes near the entry point.
Q 07Without treatment, roughly what share of people infected with plague die?
30% to 90%
With modern antibiotics the risk falls to around 10%, and death, when it comes, is usually within ten days.
Q 08Which of these antibiotics is used to treat bubonic plague?
Streptomycin
Gentamicin, doxycycline and ciprofloxacin also work; treatment should start within 24 hours of symptoms.
Q 09Which three countries recorded the most plague cases between 2010 and 2015?
DR Congo, Madagascar and Peru
Globally there were 3,248 documented cases and 584 deaths in that period.
Q 10On average, how many human plague cases did the United States record per year between 1900 and 2015?
9
They cluster in rural New Mexico, Arizona, Colorado and California; two 2015 cases were caught in Yosemite.
Q 11A Mongolian couple died of plague in 2019 after hunting and eating which animal?
Marmot
A teenager died the same way in 2020 after eating infected meat from the same rodent.
Q 12The first recorded plague pandemic is named after which Byzantine emperor, who caught it and survived?
Justinian I
The historian Procopius later suggested in his Secret History that the emperor was a demon who had created the plague himself.
Q 13In which year did the first pandemic's plague reach Constantinople?
542
It moved from port to port around the Mediterranean before pushing inland into Asia Minor, Greece and Italy.
Q 21The Medical Faculty of Paris blamed the pestilence on what?
A conjunction of planets
This miasma theory held that the alignment had corrupted the air.
Q 22About how many Jews were murdered in the Strasbourg massacre of February 1349?
2,000
Many Jews fled to Poland, where King Casimir the Great welcomed them.
Q 23Which city-state, now Dubrovnik, imposed a thirty-day isolation on arrivals from plague areas in 1377?
Ragusa
The period was later stretched to forty days, giving us the word quarantine.
The word "quarantine" derives from the Italian word for which number?
Q 14Which historian described his personal encounter with the Justinianic plague in his History of the Wars?
Procopius
He also wrote the scandalous Secret History about the imperial court.
Q 15Roughly how many people is the Black Death estimated to have killed?
Up to 50 million
That was around half of Europe's 14th-century population, and the continent did not recover its numbers until the 16th century.
Q 16During which years did the Black Death sweep Europe?
1346 to 1353
It was the second great natural disaster of the Late Middle Ages after the Great Famine of 1315–1317.
Q 17When is the term "Black Death" first attested in English?
1755
It translated the Danish den sorte død; contemporaries called it the pestilence or the Great Death.
Q 18A 2022 study traced the Black Death's earliest victims to cemeteries in the Chüy Valley of which country?
Kyrgyzstan
Syriac tombstones there record a spike in deaths from pestilence in 1338–1339.
Q 19The Black Death reportedly entered Europe during the 1347 siege of which Genoese trading port in Crimea?
Caffa
The besieging Golden Horde army of Jani Beg is said to have catapulted infected corpses over the walls.
Q 20How many Genoese galleys carried the plague into Sicily in October 1347?
Twelve
One of the galleys expelled from Italy reached Marseilles by the end of January.
Forty
Ragusa's original isolation period was thirty days before it was extended.
Q 25Which Boccaccio work uses a frame story of people fleeing Florence to escape the Black Death?
The Decameron
Chaucer and Petrarch also wrote about the pandemic, and all three are considered part of the Western canon.
Q 26Which diarist stayed in London and recorded the Great Plague of 1665 first-hand?
Samuel Pepys
He noted the first cases in the parish of St Michael, Crooked Lane, on 30 April 1665.
Q 27Roughly how many people did the Great Plague of London kill in 18 months?
100,000
That was almost a quarter of the city's population.
Q 28How was a plague house marked in London in 1665?
A red cross on the door
The words "Lord have mercy upon us" were painted alongside it and a watchman stood guard outside.
Q 29To which city did Charles II and his court finally move in September 1665 to escape the plague?
Oxford
They had gone first to Salisbury but left when plague cases appeared there too.
Q 30Who wrote A Journal of the Plague Year, published in 1722?
Daniel Defoe
He was only about five during the actual epidemic, so the vivid book is a reconstruction.