History.com: How the Black Death Spread Along the Silk Road

The Silk Road was a vital trading route connecting East and West -- but it also became a conduit for one of history's deadliest pandemics. The Silk Road, a network of land and sea trade routes that connected China and the Far East with Europe from 130 B.C. to 1453 A.D., became a vital source for everything from fabric and leather goods to spices and precious stones. It connected communities and allowed them to share innovations such as paper-making and printing technology, as well as language, culture and religious beliefs. But the medieval superhighway also has a darker, lethal legacy: It enabled one of the first great pandemics -- the plague known as the Black Death -- to spread along its route and eventually reach the edge of Europe, where it killed more than 50 million people between 1346 and 1352.