If the outbreak of COVID-19 has a bullseye in the U.S., it's Washington State. Schools and universities closed, a gauge of alarm here. Seen in Seattle: a lot of masks. But not for the first time.

The Oakland Municipal Auditorium being used as a temporary hospital during the influenza pandemic of 1918, in Oakland, California. The Oakland Municipal Auditorium being used as a temporary hospital ...

Masks failed in 1918 to control the spread of influenza, but lessons learned from this epidemic should inspire us to wear masks in response to COVID-19. Advocates of “Masks for All” can learn from the ...

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken the world by storm, but it is not unique. Past pandemics have likewise been accompanied by conspiracy theories and waves of mistrust in science. In this Curiosities of ...

Collage of various newspaper headlines related to the previous year's influenza pandemic, Chicago, Illinois, 1919. Headlines include 'Police Raid Saloons in War on Influenza,' 'Flu Curfew to Sound for ...

Just over a century ago, a virulent flu outbreak was wreaking havoc on the world. We know it now as the 1918 influenza pandemic, and its tremors were felt far and wide. By the end of its spread, tens ...

An international team of climate researchers and scientists affiliated with institutions like Harvard, the University of Maine, and the University of Nottingham have uncovered evidence of a six-year ...

In 1924 Encyclopædia Britannica published a two-volume history of the 20th century thus far. More than 80 authors—professors and politicians, soldiers and scientists—contributed chapters to These ...

American Expeditionary Force victims of the flu pandemic at U.S. Army Camp Hospital no. 45 in Aix-les-Bains, France, in 1918. Wikipedia Nearly 100 years ago, in 1918, the world experienced the ...

A version of this story appears in the September 2020 issue of National Geographic magazine. Philadelphia detected its first case of a deadly, fast-spreading strain of influenza on September 17, 1918.