The year of 1665 was the arrival of fear and death, which blanketed the city of medival London. This fear and death was in the shape of a plague. The world believed that the disease was known as The Black Death from the blackened and putrefying flesh of its victims. It is not true because this doesn't happen to the victim. The buboes caused by septicaemic plague show up as purple or black blotches. But bubonic or septicaemic plague was not common in the 14th century. Other stories link the disease to a black comet, a man on a black horse, or a black giant striding across the country.

The most likely origin of the term is as a mistranslation of the Latin expression for the plague: pestis atra or atra mors. `Atra' is translated as `dreadful/terrible' but can also mean `black'.

There is no evidence that the...