Persian plague of 1772–1773
The epidemic was caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. It killed two million people. It is one of the deadliest epidemics in history. It reached Baghdad in 1772 and Basra in 1773, where it killed about 250,000 people in Basra alone. After that, the epidemic spread to the Persian Gulf. In 1798, there were deaths in Mosul.