Influenza

Pandemic Influenza: 100 years
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the 1918-1919 global influenza pandemic. Explore the historical timeline and register to access world-leading influenza research.

Explore the historical timeline

Spanish influenza redux: revisiting the mother of all pandemics

Mark Honigsbaum

Published: 23 June 2018

“The brevity of the influenza pandemic of August–September 1918 posed great problems to doctors at the time… It has posed great problems to historians ever since.”

Terence Ranger

The “Spanish” influenza virus—or at least its viral offspring—have been circulating between the northern and southern hemispheres for 100 years now, but it is arguably only in the past few years that histories of the pandemic virus have achieved a similar ubiquity in our culture. Indeed, in a period that has seen a steady flow of books and films about World War 1, it should come as no surprise that the 1918–19 influenza pandemic should have become an object of similar popular interest, with the BBC, America's National Public Radio, and the US Smithsonian Institution all commissioning major documentaries and exhibitions to mark its centenary this year./.../