1918 pandemic
(Redirected from Spanish flu)
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About
The 1918 pandemic influenza, colloquially (but inaccurately) known as "The Spanish flu", was an H1N1 virus which killed approximately 50 million peopel worldwide and about 675,000 in the United States.
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Misnaming
This pandemic could be just as accurately termed "The Kansas flu" because one of the places it was first identified was Camp Funston, Kansas; the outbreak source, however, is not known. The "Spanish" nomenclature only came about because reporting in the US and other countries involved in World War I was largely suppressed in order to aid the war effort, while Spain was neutral and its newspapers were therefore free to report on the pandemic. (This is a reasonably good example of blaming the messenger.)