In 1345, the Mongol hordes besieging Kaffa were being decimated by the Black Death.  Desperate, the leaders of the Mongol army figured it would take only a few plague-ridden corpses to infect and destroy all the inhabitants of the city. Everyone would die, Mongols and Christians together. Eye witness Gabriele de’ Mussi tells us what happened next: “Whereupon the Tartars (Mongols), worn out by this pestilential disease, and falling on all sides as if thunderstruck, and seeing that they were perishing hopelessly, ordered the corpses to be placed upon their engines and thrown into the city of Kaffa. Accordingly were the bodies of the dead hurled over the walls, so that the Christians were not able to hide or protect themselves from this danger, although they carried away as many as possible and threw them into the sea.”  Historians later would quibble over the accuracy of de’ Mussi’s account.  Experts in medieval warfare along...(Read Full Article)