The 1918-1919 influenza pandemic killed more people than the Great War, known today as World War I (WWI), between twenty and forty million of people. (1) Influenza is a virus that appeared in 1918 and caused a pandemic. This had a huge impact that is still important for the world today. This has pushed scientists to make advancements in the medicine and vaccination industry, which continue to grow every day. The flu may be a horrible thing, but without it we wouldn't be where we are today. In the fall of 1918, influenza first appeared in pockets across the world. At first it was dismissed as just a cold. But this season's flu was more than just a cold. In the two years that this scourge ravaged the earth, a fifth of the world's population was infected. (1) Including twenty-eight percent of all Americans. During those two years, an estimated six hundred and seventy-five thousand Americans died from the flu. It was the greatest scare Americans had ever experienced from a single disease. People aged twenty to forty are at the greatest risk of infection. Even President Woodrow Wilson suffered from the flu in early 1919 while negotiating the crucial Treaty of Versailles to end the World War. Public health departments have distributed gauze masks to wear in public. Stores could not hold sales; funerals were limited to 15 minutes. Some cities required a signed certificate for entry and the railroads would not accept passengers without this certificate. (1) The flu has killed almost as many American military personnel as died in combat, ten times more American civilians, and twice as many people worldwide as died in combat on all fronts during the four whole years... middle of paper ......ty for almost a hundred years now and no signs of stopping anytime soon. We can only guess what scientific discoveries this will bring in the future.Works Cited1. Billings, Molly. “The 1918 flu pandemic.” virus.stanford.edu. Modified RDS, 2005. Web. November 12, 2013.2. Ng, Sophia et al. "The effect of age and recent history of influenza vaccination on the immunogenicity and effectiveness of 2009-2010 seasonal trivalent inactivated influenza vaccination in children." Plos One 8.3 (2013): e59077. MEDLINE. Internet. November 15, 2013.3. Kamradt-Scott, Adam. “The Politics of Medicine and the Global Governance of the Influenza Pandemic.” International Health Services Review: Planning, Administration, Evaluation 43.1 (2013): 105-121. MEDLINE with full text. Internet. November 15, 2013.4. Crosby, Alfred W. America's Forgotten Pandemic. Austin: University of Cambridge, 2003. Print.