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Health Science

When flu spread around the world and killed 50 million people

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January 27, 2018 at 8:00 a.m. EST
A Red Cross emergency ambulance station in Washington, D.C., during the influenza pandemic of 1918. (Library of Congress)

As World War I raged in Europe, an even deadlier killer was on the loose — influenza. During 1918, up to 50 million people died during the worst flu pandemic the world has ever seen.

About 675,000 perished in the United States alone — far more than the number of Americans who died in World War I. You can experience those terrifying days through "The Deadly Virus," an online exhibition from the National Archives and Records Administration.