In 1347, Europe was hit by the worst natural disaster in its recorded history: the Black Death. Now believed to be a combination of bubonic plague and two other rarer plague strains, the Black Death ravaged the continent for several terrible years before finally fading away in 1352. Most historians believe that the pandemic, which also swept across parts of Western Asia and North Africa, annihilated 33 to 60 percent of Europe's population--roughly 25 to 45 million men, women, and children. This massive depopulation had a deep impact on the course of European history, speeding up or initiating important social, economic, religious, and cultural changes.