Episode 2: The New World

At the end of the 15th century European explorers set off across the season journeys of exploration which became known as the Age of Discovery. They took with them European diseases such as Smallpox and Influenza. While the Europeans had developed some immunity to these diseases, the civilizations they encountered had none. In Latin America, the Aztec, Maya and Inca were devastated .Two hundred years later the indigenous people North America and the Pacific , including the Australian Aborigines suffered a similar fate, while in Europe, Plague returned taking the lives of hundreds of thousands in major cities including Amsterdam and London .