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Photograph of rows of hospital beds filled with patients in a large warehouse.
An emergency hospital in Camp Funston, Kansas, during an influenza epidemic (c. 1918).

"Spanish flu" pandemic.

1918

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An emergency hospital in Camp Funston, Kansas, during an influenza epidemic (c. 1918).

The pandemic infects a third of the world’s population. Over 675,000 people in the U.S. die. To maintain morale during World War I, news censors minimize early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Newspapers are free to report the pandemic's effects in Spain, including the grave illness of King Alfonso XIII, and these stories create a false impression that Spain is especially hard hit, giving rise to the name "Spanish flu."

The pandemic results in a higher than expected mortality rate for young adults. The death industry is also impacted, as bodies pile up and Americans turn to faster and different ways of dealing with their dead.