Family History Writing Challenge: Day 3

This is the sort of thing which reminds you of the importance of citing sources.  Over the years, I have tried to impress on beginning genealogists how important it is to note down the source of any fact that they discover; I wish I had done it when I had started to research my family tree yada yada yada.  But I thought I was getting better (there goes that smug attitude again) - much better.

Until I started writing "Faith and Silk" for the Family History Writing Challenge.  Suddenly, facts which I had absorbed over the years, but not documented because I knew about them anyway, are looming large and unfinished in my book.  For instance: "The Great Sweat".  Now, I know it was something horrendous like influenza which spread to epidemic proportions like the Black Death - but when exactly did it happen? And what exactly was it? Have I remembered right?  Oh, that's easy, I'll just look it up in my software - er, no, perhaps I won't.  Why? Because I forgot to write down not only what it was and when it was - but where I found the information in the first place. 

Right then, I thought, I'll have to go back to the Internet and put "Great Sweat" into a search engine.  I have now officially given up on ALL search engines. They return stupid results like "Great Sweat from leading men's fashion retailer...", "Great Sweat and Odor Laundry Round Up", "Painting - great sweat equity or pain in the neck?", and "if you are trying to lose weight quickly and get a great sweat, using a sweatshirt is a good idea".  I despair.

Now - the Black Death was when? where?