Humanity has been plagued by terrible epidemics throughout its existence... The first mentions of mass diseases of people and animals are found in the written sources of ancient peoples! For example, modern researchers have learned about an outbreak of polio in Ancient Egypt in the 3rd–2nd millennia BC. Yellow fever also has a long history, decimating white pioneers in tropical Africa for centuries. Plague epidemics or smallpox epidemics still remain in the collective memory of many peoples, just like “cholera barracks” or “Spanish flu”... Previously, such mass diseases were called “pestilence” or “great pestilence”. Now they have the scientific name “epidemic” or “pandemic”. A pandemic is a disease that has become widespread, affecting a significant portion of the entire population. According to the criteria of the World Health Organization, a pandemic is the spread of a new disease on a global scale. Today, when a wave of coronavirus has covered the Earth, we want to tell readers about the role of epidemics in human history.