Modern Era · North America · Disaster
1918
Spanish Flu Pandemic Begins
March 1918
A strain of influenza, probably born in an army camp in Kansas, spread through the trenches of the Western Front and then around the world on troop ships. It killed the young and healthy preferentially, drowning them in their own lungs. By 1920, fifty million were dead - more than the war itself had managed.
In context
Also in 1918 (4 other events on record)
- Armistice in the Compiegne forest · Europe · War
- Romanovs executed at Yekaterinburg · Europe · Politics
- Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates · Europe · Politics
- Wilson's Fourteen Points · North America · Politics
Before and after in North America
Before and after in Disaster
Era
Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources