The Black Death, AKA Black Plague of Bubonic Plague. Notorious
European pandemic, killed millions. Quite a devastating time in
history, wiping out about 60% of Europe’s population. But what
could have possibly helped a quite a bit with the horrors of
dead people everywhere? Cats. And of course there goes the
Catholic Church, pissed off about something else. Cats. When the
plague began, Christians felt abandoned by God. But they needed
someone to blame for this. Satan. Superstition and bad luck
resulted in feline damnation. Cats were said to have been
associated with witchcraft, Satanism, and Satan himself, the
Church ordered that all cats be killed immediatly as soon as
they were seen. So they were pretty much the scapegoats of the
time. Cats could have actually helped this problem, considering
they were great at guarding food supply etc from rats. It was
rats that carried the problem. And the problem was the deadly
germ on the fleas they carried. Cat population went way down,
but rat population went way up.