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Entry 208 of 240Pandemic

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic

1918–1920 CE/Global/Global
Today Worldwide (early outbreaks traced to Kansas, USA)Span Influenza pandemic · 1918–1920

In the last year of the war, an influenza strain circled the globe on troop ships and trains and killed somewhere between 50 and 100 million people — more than the war itself, and unusually it killed the young and healthy rather than the frail. Wartime censors suppressed reports to protect morale; neutral Spain reported freely, so the world blamed Spain and the name stuck. It was demographic catastrophe on the scale of the Black Death, and it was largely forgotten within a decade.

◆ Worth knowingIt was not Spanish. Wartime censorship silenced the press in every combatant country, so only neutral Spain's newspapers covered it honestly — and a pandemic got named after the one nation that told the truth about it.
◆ The mechanismPandemic

A pathogen spreads through a population and reshapes its demography, economy, and beliefs at once.

Also: Demographic shock & recovery · Information-medium revolution

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