So what's new (yawn)?

Browsing these old books yesterday (books that represent what I DON'T know, that's why I was browsing them), my eye fell on a reference to the Black Death, that horrible plague that swept the world and shattered 14th century Italy. Straight to google...and (yawn no.2) there they were, those events I'd forgotten or never knew about...been around for yonks.
Cheerful reading? Not exactly, but it sure did put the current business into a bit of perspective, and it's made me think (never an easy task) that we could actually be worse off!!!