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Topic: The influenza outbreak

It was on this date, 90 years ago today, a week after it hit members of a military post in Kansas, that the influenza outbreak first touched the general public in New York. The birth of the Pandemic of 1918 was little noticed at the time, but the virus spread quickly. The rapid transmission was abetted by the war efforts, since ships were transporting soldiers (and the virus they carried) around the world.

In fact, although epidemiologists believe the influenza strain originated in the United States, it was dubbed the Spanish influenza. Why? Well, not only was the press in Spain paying close attention to the outbreak of disease (Spain, remember, was staunchly neutral during the devasting worldwide war, so its journalists were investigating issues other than fighting), but an estimated eight million Spaniards were stricken by the virus in May of that year.

In Spain, by the way, the illness was sometimes known as the French flu but its arrival was also blamed on German U-boats; in France, where half a million people succumbed to the pandemic, it was also known as La Grippe.

By September, the virus had returned stateside with a vengeance, and by the time the pandemic ended two years later, between 20 and 100 million people worldwide—in almost every corner of the world—had died from it.

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