In England, many children enjoy playing the game of Ring a ring o' roses. They stand in a circle and then skip around, singing the song until the last line, when they all fall down. Where does this song come from?
Many people believe that the song is about the Great Plague of London, in 1665, when about 100,000 people died from a mysterious [?]. The roses refer to the rosy rash which was
the first [?] that someone had the disease. To hide the smell of the [?], people filled their pockets with flowers and this is the meaning behind the second line. Later, [?] of the disease would [?] and sneeze, making an "Ah-tishoo!" sound, before the end finally came and they fell down [?].
The first recorded [?] of the plague was on April 12, 1665, but by July of that year it had [?] through London. By September, 7,000 people were dying every week and many
chose to leave London. A small number of doctors stayed to [?] the plague, but nobody knew that rats were carrying the disease around the city's [?] streets.
The plague continued in London until September, 1666, when the Great Fire of London burned down many of the streets where the [?] lived.
Afterwards, Sir Christopher Wren designed clean streets for London and the plague didn't return. London [?] both disasters and today only the words of a children's song remind us of the [?] disease.