Plague in the news and in history

My listing of possible modern pandemics in Ebola outbreak now a top story neglected the original, bubonic plage itself.  This was despite my mentiong it earlier as Justinian's Plague in my comment to Bright Were The Halls Then.  Events have since reminded me that the Black Death is still with us, as Discovery News asks Should We Worry About The Bubonic Plague?

The bubonic plague has been killing people for thousands of years. Should we be worried? Join Tara as she discusses a shocking new case of this rare disease.

That's not all.  Earlier the same week, CrashCourse on YouTube posted Disease! Crash Course World History 203.

In which John Green teaches you about disease, and the effects that disease has had in human history. Disease has been with man since the beginning, and it has shaped the way humans operate in a lot of ways. John will teach you about the Black Death, the Great Dying, and the modern medical revolution that has changed the world.

In addition to including these videos in consecutive Overnight News Digest: Science Saturdays on Daily Kos, which is another location for storing stories I want to use, I've shown them to my biodiversity class.  Crazy Eddie's Motie News is not the only blog I use as a way of remembering things.

Speaking of remembering things, did you know that one of the hypotheses for the origin of "Ring Around the Rosie" is that it is a childhood memory of the plague passed down over the centuries?  Examiner.com has the story in Ring Around the Rosie and the Black Death.  I tell that one to my students, and it always freaks them out.