Originally published at Lughnasa 1998. Henbane, whose botanical name is Hyoscyamus niger, is a member of the Solanaceae order of plants which includes such innocuous members as the humble potato and tomato but also highly poisonous and notorious ones such as belladonna, mandrake and the daturas.
St. Bartholomew's Day massacre. English: The St. Bartholomew's Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-BarthÃ©lemy in French) was a wave of Catholic mob violence against the Huguenots (French Protestants).
The Plague of Justinian in the 6th and 7th centuries is the first known attack on record. From historical descriptions, itâs known that as much as 40 percent of the population of Constantinople died from the plague. It killed up to 10,000 people a day. Modern estimates suggest half of Europe's population was wiped out before the plague disappeared in the 700s. The second and best known pandemic, Black Death, occurred in the 14th century. It reached Europe in 1337 and infected the entire continent by 1350. It killed nearly a third of the population.