The 1918 Flu Pandemic
The 1918 flu pandemic was a lethal outbreak of influenza which infected 500 million people around the world, including remote Pacific islands and the Arctic, and resulted in the deaths of 50 to 100 million (three to five percent of the world's population) making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history. It killed the young and not the old, and was spread around the world by troops returning home after the First World War.