Before Game of Thrones, Croatia Invented Quarantine + 10 Under Utilized Tactics To Host a Meeting
This may come as a big surprise to some of you, but back in the 14th Century Croatia invented quarantine, when a merchant vessel from China entered a Croatian port during the Black Plague, and the sailers were refused entry to Croatian soil. This meant the Chinese crew remained on ship, as the story goes, for 40 days, until the Croatians were certain that no one on board would give them the Black Death. And so quarantine was born.
In full disclosure my background is Croatian. My extended family is Croatian. All my cousins are Croatian.
So this means this story will be read by my cousins in a few days time, and then, because Croatians know national pride like no other, this story will be forwarded a thousand times over, eventually landing on a local musicians desk. That musician will then write an epic Croatian folk-rock song with a beautiful woman in the background dancing near the ocean, with seagulls flying overhead. The lyrics will include how they were the first to invent quarantine, and will probably add something about how ridiculously beautiful Croatia is. If you haven't been, and you don't have COVID-19, then definitely go visit.
Now that this bombshell announcement is complete, a few sources for your reference for those in doubt on the Croatian quarantine claim:
I first learned of this by Dr Peter Hotez, M.D., Ph.D on a recent broadcast on the Joe Rogan Show podcast and more recently found a secondary source from UK's timeout magazine.