39th Regiment marching through the streets of Seattle, Washington, USA, on its way to France, during the Spanish Flu pandemic. The 1918 Spanish influenza pandemic, which occurred in several waves between 1918 and 1920, infected one fifth of the world population and killed between 20 and 50 million, more than had been killed in the First World War. The second wave of the pandemic, from August 1918, was much deadlier than the first, with high mortality rates among young healthy adults. Photographed in 1918. |