how many people did the spanish flu kill
1918 flu pandemic The 1918 flu pandemic (January 1918 – December 1920) was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus.[1] It infected 500 million people around the world,[2] including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population[3]), making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6] Disease had already greatly limited life expectancy in the early 20th century. A considerable spike occurred at the time of the pandemic, specifically the year 1918. Life expectancy in the United States alone dropped by about 12 years.[7][8][9][10]
1918 flu pandemic To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States.[17][18] However, papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Spain (such as the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII).[19] This reporting dichotomy created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit,[20] thereby giving rise to the pandemic's nickname, Spanish Flu.[21] In Spain, a different nickname was adopted, the Naples Soldier (Soldado de Nápoles), which came from a musical operetta (zarzuela) titled La canción del olvido (The Song of Forgetting), which premiered in Madrid during the first epidemic wave. Federico Romero, one of the librettists, quipped that the play's most popular musical number, Naples Soldier, was as catchy as the flu.[22]
Swine influenza The H1N1 form of swine flu is one of the descendants of the strain that caused the 1918 flu pandemic.[64][65] As well as persisting in pigs, the descendants of the 1918 virus have also circulated in humans through the 20th century, contributing to the normal seasonal epidemics of influenza.[65] However, direct transmission from pigs to humans is rare, with only 12 recorded cases in the U.S. since 2005.[66] Nevertheless, the retention of influenza strains in pigs after these strains have disappeared from the human population might make pigs a reservoir where influenza viruses could persist, later emerging to reinfect humans once human immunity to these strains has waned.[67]
Great Fire of London Only a few deaths from the fire are officially recorded, and deaths are traditionally believed to have been few. Porter gives the figure as eight[51] and Tinniswood as "in single figures", although he adds that some deaths must have gone unrecorded and that, besides direct deaths from burning and smoke inhalation, refugees also perished in the impromptu camps.[52]