Free Republic

In 430 B.C., a new and deadly disease—its cause remains a mystery—swept into Athens. The walled Greek city-state was teeming with citizens, soldiers and refugees of the war then raging between Athens and Sparta. As streets filled with corpses, social order broke down. Over the next three years, the illness returned twice and Athens lost a third of its population. It lost the war too. The Plague of Athens marked the beginning of the end of the Golden Age of Greece. The Plague of Athens is one of 10 historically notable outbreaks described in an article in The Lancet Infectious...

Planners of Barack Obama's acceptance speech for the Democratic presidential nomination at Invesco Field may want to keep a weather-eye out for history of a different kind. Think: grasshopper swarms blotting out the sun and lightening strikes, marble-size hail and 53 mph winds. All these have occurred in the Denver area on Aug. 28 through recorded history, according to National Weather Service.

Whether the problems in America are plagues or not, God is still in control. The revisiting of the ten plagues of ancient Biblical times makes it easier to understand the reasons why America is in the mess that it is in today. All the possible plagues that have been mentioned could become even worse as days, months and years pass. But, one thing is for sure, if America does not repent as a nation, God will send some form of punishment. God will not be continually mocked by sinful Americans who rebel against Him.

These accounts of plagues are grisly, yes, but great. BY STEVEN JOHNSON Saturday, September 9, 2006 12:01 a.m. EDT 1. "History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides (431 B.C.). Accounts of deadly epidemics appear in the earliest written records, but the first canonical rendering of life during plague time is Book Two of Thuycydides' "History of the Peloponnesian War," with its haunting portrait of the plague of Athens (likely an outbreak of typhus fever). The great historian delivers a gruesome inventory of the symptoms of the disease, based in part on his own battle with it. He also captures, for...

NEW ORLEANS - After most of New Orleans sat submerged in water for weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the eight months since Oct. 1 have been the driest southern Louisiana has been during the 111 years that records have been kept, the state climatologist says. Since October, most of the southern half of the state has averaged just 21 inches of rain, down from the usual 40-inch average, climatologist Barry Keim said. The National Weather Service says the rest of June promises more of the same. "We're in what's called extreme drought," Keim said of the state's record-breaking dry spell. "We've...

JEBALIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) - The Gaza withdrawal is earning Israel rare accolades - with several Muslim countries opening a line to the Jewish state - and a renewed peace process looks more likely now than at any time in the past five years. But chaos after the Israeli military pullout this week is raising serious questions about the Palestinian Authority's ability to assert control. If Gaza remains lawless, the potential payoffs - renewed peace talks, economic reconstruction, revived hopes for statehood - will be threatened. Palestinian officials chalk up the mayhem at the Egyptian border, the looting of prized...

HAIKOU, Aug. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- A long-awaited rainfall on Friday has not bring too much joy to the farmers of the drought-hit Lingao County in south China's island province of Hainan, because a large area of their cropland was ruined a locust plague. More than 800 mu (53.3 hectares) of seedlings in the county were eaten up by the locusts and the sugarcane fields were also stricken by the plague. Lingao is not the only place that has been stricken by locusts. According to statistics from the provincial Department of Agriculture,16 counties and cities in the province, covering an area...

In a devastating new twist to the severe drought hitting southern Europe, France is now fighting a plague of hundreds of thousands of locusts which are devouring everything from crops to flowers in village window boxes.The worst invasion by the voracious insects is centred on Saint-Affrique in the Aveyron region where, for the first time since 1987, hundreds of thousands have hatched in the last week. An Aveyron cattle and ewe breeder Gérard Laussel expected them to destroy his crop of lucerne which he uses to feed his livestock. 'At the beginning they seem small, insignificant insects but they grow...

OTTAWA, Canada (AP) - Prime Minister Paul Martin scrambled Monday to prevent the fall of his government amid a kickback scandal in his Liberal Party, as a new poll showed the opposition Conservatives would easily win fresh elections if held today. In what some say is Canada's version of Watergate, in terms of magnitude and potential damage, Martin reiterated that he had nothing to do with the ethics fiasco, in which party members are accused of having taken kickbacks from advertising agencies hired to promote federalism in the rebellious French-speaking province of Quebec. "Not only do I have the moral...

This month, the New Jersey Pest Management Association issued a news release to warn against the prospect of billions of mosquitoes and threat of West Nile Fever they pose. West Nile Fever arrived in New York City in 1999 and, within three years, it had spread to California. In Washington, an executive order was signed recently to insure that avian flu does not reach these shores and, when a single case of Mad Cow Disease was discovered, the border was shut to Canadian beef. When SAARS broke out in Red China a few years ago, it too was quickly quarantined....

JERUSALEM (Reuters)-Millions of locusts swarmed through Israel's Red Sea resort town of Eilat on Sunday, devouring crops and flowers in the country's south.(snip)But some israelis as well as labourers from Thailand, where locusts are a delicacy, made the best of the current outbreak by collecting the insects and taking them home for dinner. "Delicious," said one Israeli man in Eilat, licking his lips after picking a locust off the ground and eating it raw. "They're a delicacy fit for a king."(snip)

The cycle of violence between the Jews and the Egyptians continues with no end in sight in Egypt. After eight previous plagues that have destroyed the Egyptian infrastructure and disrupted the lives of ordinary Egyptian citizens, the Jews launched a new offensive this week in the form of the plague of darkness. Western journalists were particularly enraged by this plague. "It is simply impossible to report when you can't see an inch in front of you," complained a frustrated Andrea Koppel of CNN. "I have heard from my reliable Egyptian contacts that in the midst of the blanket of blackness,...

'Biblical' locust plague threatens MideastAhead of Passover, U.N. agency warns of potential devastation Posted: March 2, 20041:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com With the Passover celebration just weeks away, a locust plague of biblical proportions could threaten parts of the Middle East and Africa, according to a United Nations agency. An outbreak that potentially could darken the sky and consume everything in its path is "in progress on the Red Sea coast in Saudi Arabia where swarms are forming," the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization said. Despite intensive control operations, swarms are expected to move into the country's interior where a...

A Russian mathematician says he's come up with a logical explanation for Moses' parting of the waves. Naum Wolzinger says it had more to do with the changing of the tide than divine intervention. The scene where Moses parts the waves and leads the Israelites across the Red Sea is one of the most well known stories in the Bible. But Mr Wolzinger, from St Petersburg, said it was not a miracle. He says there is a riff six or seven metres under the water that runs from one bank of the Gulf of Suez to the other at the...

SARS And The New Plagues is coming on the History Channel in about ten minutes. This is a live thread to discuss this presentation. Please feel free to add your comments.