Renewable Revolution

Agelbert NOTE: I am adding this accurate history before the excellent documentary below to explain why I get exercised every time somebody calls the 1918 H1N1 Pandemic the "Spanish" Flu.

BY EVAN ANDREWS

SNIPPETS:

While it’s unlikely that the “Spanish Flu” originated in Spain, scientists are still unsure of its source. France, China and Britain have all been suggested as the potential birthplace of the virus, as has the United States, where the first known case was reported at a military base in Kansas on March 11, 1918. Researchers have also conducted extensive studies on the remains of victims of the pandemic, but they have yet to discover why the strain that ravaged the world in 1918 was so lethal.

As the pandemic reached epic proportions in the fall of 1918, it became commonly known as the “Spanish Flu” or the “Spanish Lady” in the United States and Europe. Many assumed this was because the sickness had originated on the Iberian Peninsula, but the nickname was actually the result of a widespread misunderstanding.

Spain was one of only a few major European countries to remain neutral during World War I. Unlike in the Allied and Central Powers nations, where wartime censors suppressed news of the flu to avoid affecting morale, the Spanish media was free to report on it in gory detail. News of the sickness first made headlines in Madrid in late-May 1918, and coverage only increased after the Spanish King Alfonso XIII came down with a nasty case a week later. Since nations undergoing a media blackout could only read in depth accounts from Spanish news sources, they naturally assumed that the country was the pandemic’s ground zero. The Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus had spread to them from France, so they took to calling it the “French Flu.”

READ MORE ABOUT THE 1918 PANDEMIC:


4,523,651 views•Oct 2, 2018


Chromosome8
28.2K subscribers

Historical documentary about 1918 Swine Flu or Spanish Flu and the role of World War I in spreading the disease among troops making it into a worldwide plague of devastating proportions. The video covers where it began, how and where it spread, the symptoms, how it affected America and whether it could happen again. The music is “Blood and Ivory Keys”  by 19between. Used with Permission.

Category People & Blogs