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The year 1918 is best remembered as the year in which WW I ended.

1918 was also the year of the Spanish Flu pandemic. The Spanish Flu lasted approximately one year in 1918 - 1919. It was a very deadly pandemic during WW1 and is estimated to have killed between 25 and 50 million people world wide in that short time period, perhaps the worst human infectious disease toll in all of recorded history. The plague in the middle ages killed 8 to 13 million, for comparison. It may have influenced the outcome of some battles in WWI since it was taking a heavy toll on military men from all parts of the world.

Interestingly the French called that flu the German Flu while it was called the French Flu in Germany. The only reason it is called the Spanish Flu is that it became world news when first reported widely in Spanish newspapers (that were some of the only papers that continued printing, publishing and distributing internationally during WWI.) It is believed that this pandemic probably actually originated in the US and spread globally by soldiers moving between the home front and foreign countries during the war.

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14y ago

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