Spanish Flu: The Second Most Deadly Pandemic in History

The pandemic's true birthplace remains debated among historians and epidemiologists. Some evidence points to Camp Funston in Kansas, where Private Albert Gitchell reported to the camp hospital on March 4, 1918, complaining of fever, sore throat, and headache. Within days, hundreds of soldiers at the camp fell ill with similar symptoms. Other theories suggest origins in France, where British and Chinese laborers lived in overcrowded conditions, or in the trenches of the Western Front, where soldiers from across the globe mingled in unsanitary conditions perfect for viral transmission.

What we know with certainty is that this was no ordinary seasonal flu. The virus, later identified as an H1N1 strain, possessed an unusual and terrifying characteristic: it killed not just the elderly and infirm, but struck down healthy adults in their prime with devastating efficiency. The pandemic would ultimately claim more lives than the Great War itself, killing an estimated 50 to 100 million people worldwide at a time when the global population was only 1.8 billion.