Episode

Stop blaming rats for the plague

Podcast
No One Saw It Coming
Published
May 31, 2026
Duration seconds
1546
Processing state
not_requested
Canonical source
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/no-one-saw-it-coming/the-black-death-eleanor-janega/106672888
Audio
https://mediacore-live-production.akamaized.net/audio/02/l0/Z/07.mp3
JSON
/v1/public/podcasts/no-one-saw-it-coming-7272304/episodes/stop-blaming-rats-for-the-plague
Markdown
/podcast/no-one-saw-it-coming-7272304/stop-blaming-rats-for-the-plague.md

Actions

  • POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/no-one-saw-it-coming-7272304/episodes/stop-blaming-rats-for-the-plague/transcription-requests
    Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
  • GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/no-one-saw-it-coming-7272304/stop-blaming-rats-for-the-plague.md
    Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

Summary

If you were asked where the plague came from you’d probably say rats. Or fleas. And you’d say it swept across Europe killing up to half of the population. But where exactly did it start and how did it get to Europe in the first place? Medieval historian Dr Eleanor Janega sits down with Marc Fennell (Stuff The British Stole) and debunks the biggest myths about the black death and tells the real story behind one of the worst pandemics the world has ever seen. Binge all the episodes of No One Saw It Coming now on ABC listen (Australia) or wherever you get your podcasts. Get in touch: Got a story for us? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at [email protected]