The 'Spanish' flu

During the Vietnam War, North Vietnamese VietCong guerrillas built a vast network of tunnels in the south of the country as part of the insurgency against the South Vietnamese government and their American allies. The tunnel network was a key base and shelter for the North Vietna ...  Show more

n the late 1980s and early 1990s, Manchester City supporters became famous for an unusual sight on the terraces: inflatable bananas. What began as a light-hearted joke soon turned into one of the most memorable fan crazes in English football.Uma Doraiswamy tells the story of foot ...  Show more

The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 infected about one-third of the world’s population at the time, killing at least 50 million people. Occurring during the First World War, what became known as the Spanish Flu spread rapidly as soldiers moved across continents. It overwhelmed hosp ...  Show more

The influenza outbreak of 1918 was the deadliest pandemic in recent history, killing an estimated 50 million to 100 million people aroundthe world. And it bears some striking similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic. Today, Laura Spinney, science journalist and author of Pale Rider: ...  Show more

April 5, 1918. The first mention of a new influenza outbreak in Kansas appears in a public health report. That strain, later called the Spanish Flu, would go on to kill at least 50 million people worldwide. In a time before widespread global travel, how did this disease spread so ...  Show more

It infected one-third of the world's population and killed 50 million people, but for most of us the Spanish Flu is little more than a footnote of history. Author and science journalist Laura Spinney tells us what we have still to learn from from the 20th Century's worst pande ...