Public meetings of all kinds -- schools, churches, theaters -- were closed for most of October 1918 because of a flu epidemic that killed 7,350 Oklahomans and more than 600,000 people nationwide. Dr.

A misunderstanding about the microbe that actually causes the flu created a ripple effect that changed the future of U.S. drug development, clinical trials, and pandemic preparedness. A woman wears an ...

Introduction: An ill wind -- A victim and a survivor -- "Knock me down" fever -- The killer without a name -- The invisible enemy -- One deadly summer -- Know thy enemy -- The fangs of death -- Like ...

The 1918-19 influenza pandemic infected 500 million people worldwide and killed an estimated 20 million to 50 million. Some estimates go as high as 100 million, including some 675,000 Americans. About ...

It's easy to stare out your window at the nearly empty streets, at the people wearing masks and leaving a six-foot berth for passersby, and to believe that this is a moment unlike any other. To assume ...

The flu epidemic of 1918 ranks with the Black Death of the Middle Ages as one of the deadliest contagions of all times. The virus swept across the Earth, killing an estimated 20 million people in ...

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.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s leading expert on infectious diseases, spoke in a forum Thursday with National Institutes of Health Director Dr. Francis Collins and Dr. Luciana Borio, a member of ...