This pandemic was known by many different names—some old, some new—depending on place, time, and context. The etymology of alternative names historicises the scourge and its effects on people … See more

Transmission and mutation
The basic reproduction number of the virus was between 2 and 3. The close quarters and massive troop … See more

Around the globe
The Spanish flu infected around 500 million people, about one-third of the world's population. Estimates as to how many infected people died vary greatly, but the flu is regardless considered to be one of the See more

Despite the high morbidity and mortality rates that resulted from the epidemic, the Spanish flu began to fade from public awareness over the … See more

Timeline
First wave of early 1918
The pandemic is conventionally marked as having begun on 4 March 1918 with the recording of the case of Albert Gitchell, an army cook at Camp Funston in Kansas, United States, … See more

Public health management
While systems for alerting public health authorities of infectious spread did exist in 1918, they did not … See more

World War I
Academic Andrew Price-Smith has made the argument that the virus helped tip the balance of power in the latter days of the war towards the Allied cause. He provides data that the viral waves hit the Central Powers before … See more