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“She is a small woman with a globally familiar face, a hundred carat smile … a thousand year history at her back… She is wry and knowing, but she feels a calling… She has been shrewd, kind and wise.”

As news of “Maggie” Thatcher’s death hit the headlines, tributes began pouring in from around the UK and right across the world—from friends and foes alike. For, like her or loathe her, you could never ignore her—her leadership, her iron will and indomitable spirit, her total conviction and self-belief, and the remarkable impact that she made on her country and upon the world stage that she dominated. Hers is a truly remarkable legacy that will be discussed and debated for months and years to come. It will take books to do justice to all she accomplished.

Workers on the Crossrail project, a new railway line in London, have recently unearthed the human remains of thirteen individuals suspected of dying from the Black Death. What can we learn from this historic and, so far, unprecedented plague?