The Black Death In Europe Europe has experience two great plagues throughout its history. The first came in 1347, it was known as the Black Death. The second hit Europe’s most famous city, London, in late 1664 or early 1665; residents called it the Great London Plague. During these two plagues, there arose two men willing to tell the world of the horrors these two plagues brought with them. Giovanni Boccaccio, in his Decameron told about the horrors of the 1347 Black Plague. Daniel Defoe, in A Journal of the Plague Year illustrating the destruction caused by the Great London Plague of 1665. However no one really can attest to the truth of both of these accounts. Th