Great Plague of London
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The Great Plague of London was a period that lasted for over a year from 1665 to 1666 where the bubonic plague, spread by rats, was rampant in London, at times over one thousand people dying a day before the Great Fire of London put an end to it. (TV: The Visitation [+]Loading...["The Visitation (TV story)"], TV: Fear Itself [+]Loading...["Fear Itself (TV story)"], PROSE: Newtons Sleep [+]Loading...["Newtons Sleep (novel)"])
Forewarning
In 1651, Twelfth Doctor disclosed to the immortal Lady Me, who he realised had endured the Black Death of 1348, that another bout of the plague was coming to London, followed by a big fire. Me suggested that she would be the one to start the fire, only for the Doctor to tell her that the Terileptils would be responsible. (TV: The Woman Who Lived [+]Loading...["The Woman Who Lived (TV story)"])
The plague
Thomas Piper died in this period from the plague, in part leading to Alice Lynch, his wife, being recruited by Faction Paradox. Nick Plainsong became Nate Silver's apprentice in this same time period, helping him to treat the plague and study anatomy. (PROSE: Newtons Sleep [+]Loading...["Newtons Sleep (novel)"])
A thousand people died in one month, then 2000, then 7000. In the midst of the plague was a panic with people rioting and neighbours attacking one another. Finally, when the shadow of fear was at its deepest, the people were said to have burned their own city to the ground in the Great Fire of London. (TV: Fear Itself [+]Loading...["Fear Itself (TV story)"])
However, it was in 1666 that the Fifth Doctor confronted a group of Terileptil criminals who had escaped from the penal colony on Raaga. Whilst the plague was raging in London, the Terileptils began to genetically augment the plague bacteria, plotting to eradicate humanity and seize control of the Earth. Their plot failed when the Doctor and his companions, along with Richard Mace, fought them in a bakery on London's Pudding Lane, and a burning torch dropped during the scuffle, together with an overloaded Terileptil hand weapon, resulted in the Great Fire of London, which killed the Terileptils and destroyed their augmented plague bacteria. (TV: The Visitation [+]Loading...["The Visitation (TV story)"])
Aftermath
Historians noted that there were positive aspects to the Great Fire of London since it destroyed the London slums which became home to rats and fleas, therefore preventing the further spread of bubonic plague, as well as, so the Twelfth Doctor noted, the Terileptil invasion. (PROSE: A History of Humankind [+]Loading...["A History of Humankind (novel)"])
In 2050, Professor Alistair Gryffen used the 1665 plague and the resulting panic as an example of the spread of fear which he explained to K9 Mark 2. (TV: Fear Itself [+]Loading...["Fear Itself (TV story)"])
