The 1918–1920 flu pandemic is commonly referred to as the Spanish flu, and caused millions of deaths worldwide.
To maintain morale, wartime censors minimized early reports of illness and mortality in Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. Papers were free to report the epidemic's effects in neutral Restoration-era Spain (such as the grave illness of
King Alfonso XIII
Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alf ...
). This created a false impression of Spain as especially hard hit, thereby giving rise to the pandemic's nickname, "Spanish flu".
Notable fatalities
Listed alphabetically by surname
*
Turki I bin Abdulaziz
Turki I bin Abdulaziz Al Saud ( ar, تركي الأول بن عبد العزيز آل سعود ''Turkī al ʾAwwal bin ʿAbdulʿazīz Āl Suʿūd''; 1900–1919) was the eldest son of the Emir of Nejd (later King Abdulaziz of Saudi Arabia) and hi ...
Bernard Capes
Bernard Edward Joseph Capes (30 August 1854 – 2 November 1918) was an English author.
Biography
Capes was born in London, one of eleven children: his elder sister, Harriet Capes, was a noted translator and author of more than a dozen childre ...
, British novelist (2 November 1918)
* Amadeo de Souza Cardoso, Portuguese painter (25 October 1918)
* Kate Carmack, founder of the Klondike Gold Rush (March 29, 1920)
* Larry Chappell, American baseball player (November 8, 1918)1918 FLU PANDEMIC DID NOT SPARE BASEBALL National Baseball Hall of FameEarly Exits: The Premature Endings of Baseball Careers By Brian McKenna (Page 85)
*
Rose Cleveland
Rose Elizabeth "Libby" Cleveland (June 13, 1846 – November 22, 1918) served as first lady of the United States from 1885 to 1886, during the first term of her brother, President Grover Cleveland's two administrations. The president was a bachel ...
, First Lady of the United States of America, sister of President Grover Cleveland (November 22, 1918)
* John H. Collins, American film director, writer, and husband of actress Viola Dana (October 31, 1918)
*
Carrie Cornplanter
Carrie Cornplanter (1887–1918) was a Native American artist of the Seneca tribe.
Little is recorded of Cornplanter's life save that she was the elder sister of Jesse Cornplanter, had a sister named Anna, and had children of her own, and that he ...
, Native American artist and descendant of diplomat Cornplanter (late 1918)
*
Gaby Deslys
Gaby Deslys (born Marie-Elise-Gabrielle Caire, 4 November 1881 – 11 February 1920) was a singer and actress during the early 20th century. She selected her name for her stage career, and it is a contraction of ''Gabrielle of the Lillies'' ...
, French actress and dancer (February 11, 1920)
* Anton Dilger, medical doctor, mastermind of Germany's World War I secret bioterror sabotage (October 17, 1918)
*
Horace Elgin Dodge
Horace Elgin Dodge Sr. (May 17, 1868 – December 10, 1920) was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.
Early years and business
He was born in Niles, Michigan, on May 17, 1868.Burton, Clarence M., ...
, American automobile manufacturing pioneer (December 10, 1920)
*
John Francis Dodge
John Francis Dodge (October 25, 1864 – January 14, 1920) was an American automobile manufacturing pioneer and co-founder of Dodge Brothers Company.
Biography
Dodge was born in Niles, Michigan, where his father ran a foundry and machine s ...
, American automobile manufacturing pioneer (January 14, 1920)
* "Admiral" Dot, American circus performer under
P. T. Barnum
Phineas Taylor Barnum (; July 5, 1810 – April 7, 1891) was an American showman, businessman, and politician, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and founding the Barnum & Bailey Circus (1871–2017) with James Anthony Bailey. He was ...
Charles A. Doyen
Brigadier General Charles Augustus Doyen (September 3, 1859 − October 6, 1918) was an officer in the United States Marine Corps (USMC). He is notable for having commanded the 4th Marine Brigade during World War I and was the first recipient of ...
, United States Marine Corps brigadier general (October 6, 1918)
* Prince Erik, Duke of Västmanland (Erik Gustav Ludvig Albert Bernadotte), Prince of Sweden (September 20, 1918)
* George Freeth, father of modern surfing and lifeguard (April 7, 1919)
*
Harold Gilman
Harold John Wilde Gilman (11 February 187612 February 1919) was a British painter of interiors, portraits and landscapes, and a founder-member of the Camden Town Group.
Early life and studies
Harold John Wilde Gilman was the second son and ...
, British painter (February 12, 1919)
* Henry G. Ginaca, American engineer, inventor of the Ginaca machine (October 19, 1918)
*
Harry Glenn
Harry Melville "Husky" Glenn (June 9, 1890 – October 12, 1918) was a professional baseball player from 1910 to 1918. He played a portion of the 1915 season in Major League Baseball as a catcher for the St. Louis Cardinals. He also played e ...
, American baseball player (October 12, 1918)
*
Myrtle Gonzalez
Myrtle Gonzalez (September 28, 1891 – October 22, 1918) was an American actress. She starred in at least 78 silent era motion pictures from 1913 to 1917, of which 66 were one and two-reel shorts. She is regarded as a movie star.
* Edward Kidder Graham, President of the University of North Carolina (October 26, 1918)
*
Charles Griffes
Charles Tomlinson Griffes ( ; September 17, 1884 – April 8, 1920) was an American composer for piano, chamber ensembles and voice. His initial works are influenced by German Romanticism, but after he relinquished the German style, his late ...
, American composer (April 8, 1920)
* Wilhelm Gross, Austrian mathematician (October 22, 1918)
*
Joe Hall Joseph Hall may refer to:
Sports
* Joe Hall (American football) (born 1979), American football player
* Joe Hall (baseball) (born 1966), American baseball player
* Joe Hall (ice hockey) (1881–1919), Canadian ice hockey player
* Joe B. Hall (192 ...
, Canadian ice hockey defenceman ( Montreal Canadiens), member of the Hockey Hall of Fame (April 6, 1919)
*
Harry Harkness
Harry Stephen Harkness (July 17, 1880 – January 23, 1919) was an American aviator and racing driver.
Biography
He was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July 17, 1880 to Standard Oil heir Lamon V. Harkness.
In 1918 his personal yacht was taken by ...
, American aviator and race car driver (January 23, 1919)
* Phoebe Hearst, mother of William Randolph Hearst (April 13, 1919)
*
Alfred Hindmarsh
Alfred Humphrey Hindmarsh (18 April 1860 – 13 November 1918) was a New Zealand politician, lawyer and unionist. He died in the 1918 influenza epidemic. He served as the first leader of the modern New Zealand Labour Party.
Early life
Hindmars ...
, New Zealand Labour Party leader, lawyer and politician (November 13, 1918)
*
B. C. Hucks
Bentfield Charles Hucks (25 October 1884 – 7 November 1918) was an aviation innovator in the early 20th century. As well as test flying numerous aircraft types, he was the first Briton to perform a loop in an aircraft, which he performed in hi ...
, English aviator and test pilot (November 7, 1918)
*
Shelley Hull
Shelley Vaughan Hull (June 17, 1884 – January 14, 1919) was an American stage actor who also appeared in two silent motion pictures. His Broadway popularity as a suave handsome leading man was continually on the rise until his early death a ...
, American stage actor (January 14, 1919)
*
Margit Kaffka
Margit Kaffka (10 June 1880 – 1 December 1918) was a Hungarian writer and poet.
Called a "great, great writer" by Endre Ady, she was one of the most important female Hungarian authors, and an important member of the Nyugat generation. Her wri ...
, Hungarian writer and poet (December 1, 1918)
* Joseph Kaufman, American actor and film director (February 1, 1918)
*
Lyman W.V. Kennon
Lyman Walter Vere Kennon (September 2, 1858 – September 9, 1918) was a career United States military officer in active service from 1881 to 1918, attaining the rank of brigadier general. During the Spanish–American War Kennon was in command ...
, American brigadier general (September 9, 1918)
* Vera Kholodnaya, Russian actress (February 16, 1919)
*
Gustav Klimt
Gustav Klimt (July 14, 1862 – February 6, 1918) was an Austrian symbolist painter and one of the most prominent members of the Vienna Secession movement. Klimt is noted for his paintings, murals, sketches, and other objets d'art. Klimt's prim ...
Hans E. Lau
Hans-Emil Lau (16 April 1879 – 16 October 1918) was a Denmark, Danish astronomer.
He started his observational career during his studies at Copenhagen University. After completing his degree in 1906 he worked at the Urania, the Treptow Obser ...
, Danish astronomer (October 16, 1918)
*
Julian L'Estrange
Julian L'Estrange (born Julian Boyle; 6 August 1880 – 22 October 1918) was an English-born stage actor who later made a handful of silent films for Paramount Pictures. He married fellow performer Constance Collier at All Saints Church in Lond ...
English stage and screen actor (October 22, 1918)
* Ruby Lindsay, Australian illustrator and painter (March 12, 1919)
*
Harold Lockwood
Harold A. Lockwood (April 12, 1887 – October 19, 1918) was an American silent film actor, director, and producer. He was one of the most popular matinee idols of the early film period during the 1910s.
Early life and career
Born in Brookl ...
, American silent film star (October 19, 1918)
*
Rosalia Lombardo
Rosalia Lombardo (13 December 1918 – 6 December 1920) was a Palermitan child who died of pneumonia, resulting from the Spanish flu, one week before her second birthday. Rosalia's father, Mario Lombardo, was grieving her death, asked Alfredo Sala ...
, Italian daughter of General Lombardo (December 6, 1920)
*
Francisco Marto
Francisco de Jesus Marto (11 June 1908 – 4 April 1919) and Jacinta de Jesus Marto (11 March 1910 – 20 February 1920) were siblings from Aljustrel, a small hamlet near Fátima, Portugal, who with their cousin Lúcia dos Santos (1907–2 ...
Alan Arnett McLeod
Alan Arnett McLeod, VC (20 April 1899 – 6 November 1918) was a Canadian soldier, aviator, and a recipient of the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry in the face of the enemy that can be awarded to British and Commonwealth forces. M ...
, Canadian soldier and Victoria Cross recipient (6 November 1918)
* Dan McMichael, manager of Scottish association football club Hibernian (February 6, 1919)
*
Léon Morane
Leon, Léon (French) or León (Spanish) may refer to:
Places
Europe
* León, Spain, capital city of the Province of León
* Province of León, Spain
* Kingdom of León, an independent state in the Iberian Peninsula from 910 to 1230 and again f ...
, French aircraft company founder and pre-World War I aviator (October 20, 1918)
*
William Francis Murray
William Francis Murray (September 7, 1881 – September 21, 1918) was a U.S. Representative from Massachusetts and the Postmaster of Boston.
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, Murray attended the public schools and the Boston Latin School.
He was ...
, postmaster of Boston and former U.S. Representative (September 21, 1918)
*
Silk O'Loughlin
Francis H. "Silk" O'Loughlin (August 15, 1872 – December 20, 1918) was an American umpire in Major League Baseball who worked in the American League from 1902 to 1918. He umpired in the World Series in 1906, 1909, 1912, 1915 and 1917, serving a ...
, American baseball umpire (December 20, 1918)
* William Osler, Canadian physician, co founder of Johns Hopkins Hospital (December 29, 1919)
* Ōyama Sutematsu, first Japanese woman to receive a college degree (February, 1919)
* Hubert Parry, British composer (October 7, 1918)
* George W. Perkins, American politician and businessman (June 18, 1920)
*
Niko Pirosmani
Niko Pirosmani ( ka, ნიკო ფიროსმანი ''Nik’o Pirosmani''), Mononymous person, simply referred to as Nikala (ნიკალა ''Nik’ala''; 1862–1918), was a Georgians, Georgian painter who posthumously rose to pro ...
, Georgian naïve painter (April 9, 1918)
* Henry Ragas, American pianist of the Original Dixieland Jazz Band (February 18, 1919)
* Stephen Sydney Reynolds, English writer (February 14, 1919)
* Lunsford Richardson, inventor of Vicks VapoRub and Junk Mail (August 21, 1919)
*
William Leefe Robinson
William Leefe Robinson VC (14 July 1895 – 31 December 1918) was the first British pilot to shoot down a German airship over Britain during the First World War. For this, he was awarded the Victoria Cross (VC), the highest award for gallan ...
, British Victoria Cross recipient (December 31, 1918)
*
Edmond Rostand
Edmond Eugène Alexis Rostand (, , ; 1 April 1868 – 2 December 1918) was a French poet and dramatist. He is associated with neo-romanticism and is known best for his 1897 play ''Cyrano de Bergerac''. Rostand's romantic plays contrasted with t ...
, French dramatist, best known for his play ''Cyrano de Bergerac'' (December 2, 1918)
*
Archduke Franz Karl Salvator of Austria
Archduke Franz Karl Salvator of Austria (german: Erzherzog Franz Karl Salvator Marie Joseph Ignaz von Österreich-Toskana) (17 February 1893 in Schloss Lichtenegg, Wels, Upper Austria, Austria-Hungary – 10 December 1918, Wallsee-Sindelburg, ...
, Austro-Hungarian royalty and military officer (December 10, 1918)
* Morton Schamberg, American modernist artist (October 13, 1918)
*
Egon Schiele
Egon Leo Adolf Ludwig Schiele (; 12 June 1890 – 31 October 1918) was an Austrian Expressionist painter. His work is noted for its intensity and its raw sexuality, and for the many self-portraits the artist produced, including nude self-portr ...
, Austrian painter (October 31, 1918, Vienna)Frank Whitford, Expressionist Portraits, Abbeville Press, 1987, p. 46.
* Reggie Schwarz, South African cricketer and rugby player (November 18, 1918)
*
Martin Sheridan
Martin John Sheridan (March 28, 1881 – March 27, 1918) was a three time Olympic Games gold medallist. He was born in Bohola, County Mayo, Ireland, and died in St. Vincent's Hospital in Manhattan, New York, the day before his 37th birthday ...
Hamby Shore
Samuel Hamilton Shore (February 12, 1886 – October 13, 1918) was a Canadian professional ice hockey player who played several seasons for the Ottawa Senators between 1909 and 1918, notably during the "Silver Seven" era when the club was champio ...
, Canadian ice hockey player (October 13, 1918)
*
Robert W. Speer
Robert Walter Speer (December 1, 1855 – May 14, 1918) was elected mayor of Denver, Colorado three times. He served two four-year terms in office from 1904 to 1912. He died from Influenza, early on in the worldwide epidemic of that year on ...
, mayor of Denver (May 14, 1918)
*
Walter Stradling
Walter Stradling (1875 – July 4, 1918) was an English-born American cinematographer of the silent era. He is best remembered for working on several well-known feature films of Mary Pickford and for the Famous Players-Lasky production company in ...
, English born cinematographer (July 4, 1918)
*
Willard Dickerman Straight
Willard Dickerman Straight (January 31, 1880 – December 1, 1918) was an American investment banker, publisher, reporter, diplomat and by marriage, a member of the very wealthy Whitney family. He was a promoter of Chinese arts and investments, an ...
, American investment banker, publisher, reporter, Army Reserve officer and diplomat (December 1, 1918)
* Yakov Sverdlov, Bolshevik party leader and official of the Russian Republic established by the February 1917 Revolution (March 16, 1919)
*
Mark Sykes
Colonel Sir Tatton Benvenuto Mark Sykes, 6th Baronet (16 March 1879 – 16 February 1919) was an English traveller, Conservative Party politician, and diplomatic advisor, particularly with regard to the Middle East at the time of the First Wo ...
, British politician and diplomat, body exhumed 2008 for scientific research (February 16, 1919)
*
Dark Cloud (actor)
Dark Cloud (September 20, 1855 – September 17, 1918) was a First Nations silent film actor, born Elijah Tahamont. He was a chief of the Abenaki, a First Nations band government belonging to the Eastern Algonquian peoples of northeastern Nort ...
, born Elijah Tahamont, Native American actor, in Los Angeles (September 17, 1918)
*
Prince Tsunehisa Takeda
was the founder of the Takeda-no-miya collateral branch of the Japanese Imperial Family.
Biography
Prince Tsunehisa Takeda was the eldest son of Prince Kitashirakawa Yoshihisa and thus the brother of Prince Kitashirakawa Naruhisa. He was bor ...
Frederick Trump
Frederick Trump (born Friedrich Trump, ; March 14, 1869 – May 30, 1918) was a German-born American barber and businessman. He was the patriarch of the Trump family and the paternal grandfather of Donald Trump, the 45th President of the Unite ...
Minik Wallace
Minik Wallace (also called Minik or Mene) (ca. 1890 – October 29, 1918) was an Inughuaq (Inuk) brought as a child in 1897 from Greenland to New York City with his father and others by the explorer Robert Peary. The six Inuit were studied ...
, Inuit (October 29, 1918)
*
King Watzke
Alex "King" Watzke (1872-1919) was a violinist and bandleader in New Orleans, Louisiana. His band enjoyed fair popularity ca. 1900-1911 or later. The band played ragtime, popular music, and possibly an early or ancestral version of what later beca ...
, American violinist and bandleader (1920)
*
Max Weber
Maximilian Karl Emil Weber (; ; 21 April 186414 June 1920) was a German sociologist, historian, jurist and political economist, who is regarded as among the most important theorists of the development of modern Western society. His ideas profo ...
, German political sociologist and economist (June 14, 1920)
* Pearl F. "Specks" Webster, American baseball player (September 16, 1918)
*
Bill Yawkey
William Hoover Yawkey (August 22, 1875 – March 5, 1919) was an American business executive in the lumber and mining industries. He was the sole owner of the Detroit Tigers of the American League from 1903 through 1908, and majority owner from 1 ...
, Major League Baseball executive and owner of the Detroit Tigers, in Augusta, Georgia, US (March 5, 1919)
*
Ella Flagg Young
Ella Flagg Young (January 15, 1845 – October 26, 1918) was an American educator who served as superintendent of Chicago Public Schools. She was the first female head of a large United States city school system. She also served as the first fem ...
, American educator (October 26, 1918)
In utero effects
Children of women who were pregnant during the pandemic ran the risk of lifelong effects. One in three of the more than 25 million who contracted the flu in the United States was a woman of childbearing age. A study of US census data from 1960 to 1980 found that the children born to this group of women had more physical ailments and a lower lifetime income than those born a few months earlier or later. The study also found that persons born in states with more severe exposure to the pandemic experienced worse outcomes than persons born in states with less severe exposure. A notable example was Rosemary Kennedy, sister of 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy, who was born during the pandemic on September 23, 1918, and suffered from intellectual disability, resulting in her institutionalization.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, or Mustafa Kemal Pasha until 1921, and Ghazi Mustafa Kemal from 1921 Surname Law (Turkey), until 1934 ( 1881 – 10 November 1938) was a Turkish Mareşal (Turkey), field marshal, Turkish National Movement, re ...
Republic of Turkey
Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...
Marxist
Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
literary criticSholem, Gershom. ''Walter Benjamin: The Story of a Friendship.'' Trans. The Jewish Publication Society of America. London: Faber & Faber, 1982. 76.
*
Raymond Chandler
Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...
(1888–1959), American novelist and screenwriter
* Charles I (1887–1922), Emperor of Austria
* Walt Disney (1901–1966), cartoonist
* Peter Fraser (1884–1950), New Zealand prime minister
* Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948), leader of the campaign for India's independence from British rule
*
Lillian Gish
Lillian Diana Gish (October 14, 1893February 27, 1993) was an American actress, director, and screenwriter. Her film-acting career spanned 75 years, from 1912, in silent film shorts, to 1987. Gish was called the "First Lady of American Cinema", ...
(1893–1993), American early motion picture actress
* Haile Selassie I (1892–1975), Emperor of EthiopiaHarold Marcus, ''Haile Sellassie I: The formative years, 1892–1936'' (Trenton: Red Sea Press, 1996), pp. 36f; Pankhurst 1990, p. 48f.
*
Rufus Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading
Rufus Daniel Isaacs, 1st Marquess of Reading, (10 October 1860 – 30 December 1935) was a British Liberal politician and judge, who served as Lord Chief Justice of England, Viceroy of India, and Foreign Secretary, the last Liberal to hold that ...
Jim Jordan
James Daniel Jordan (born February 17, 1964) is an American politician currently serving in his ninth term in the U.S. House of Representatives as the representative for since 2007.
A member of the Republican Party, he is a two-tim ...
(1896–1988), American actor best known as
Fibber McGee
''Fibber McGee and Molly'' (1935–1959) was a longtime highly popular husband-and-wife team radio comedy program.
The situation comedy was a staple of the NBC Red Network from 1936 on, after originating on NBC Blue in 1935. One of the most po ...
German-speaking
German ( ) is a West Germanic language mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Liechtenstein, and the Italian province of South Tyrol. It is also a ...
Chancellor of Germany
The chancellor of Germany, officially the federal chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany,; often shortened to ''Bundeskanzler''/''Bundeskanzlerin'', / is the head of the federal government of Germany and the commander in chief of the Ge ...
Edvard Munch
Edvard Munch ( , ; 12 December 1863 – 23 January 1944) was a Norwegian painter. His best known work, ''The Scream'' (1893), has become one of Western art's most iconic images.
His childhood was overshadowed by illness, bereavement and the dr ...
John J. Pershing
General of the Armies John Joseph Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948), nicknamed "Black Jack", was a senior United States Army officer. He served most famously as the commander of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) on the Wes ...
(1860–1948), American general
* Boies Penrose (1980–1921), United States Senator
* Mary Pickford (1892–1979), American film actress
* Lakshman Singh (1908–1989), last
maharawal
Rawal (also spelled Raval) or Raol originally is a regional variation of the Hindi princely ruler title Raja/Radjah (literally "king") used in some princely states in Rajputana and Western India (notably Gujarat), and is now also used as a caste ...
of
Dungarpur State
Dungarpur State was a princely state during the British Raj. Its capital was the city of Dungarpur in the southernmost area of present-day Rajasthan State in India. In 1901 the total population of Dungarpur State was 100,103, while that of the ...
(1928–1948), Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha, 1952–1958), Member of the Legislative Council of Rajasthan (1962–1989)
* Katherine Anne Porter (1890–1980), Pulitzer Prize-winning American writer
* Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945), American president
*
Jan Kanty Steczkowski
Jan Kanty Steczkowski (; 16 October 1862, Dąbrowa Tarnowska – 3 September 1929, Kraków) was a Polish economist, solicitor and politician.
Steczkowski served as Minister of Finance of Poland in the government of Jan Kucharzewski. On 4 April ...
nuclear physicist
Nuclear physics is the field of physics that studies atomic nuclei and their constituents and interactions, in addition to the study of other forms of nuclear matter.
Nuclear physics should not be confused with atomic physics, which studies the ...
, discoverer of the
nuclear chain reaction
In nuclear physics, a nuclear chain reaction occurs when one single nuclear reaction causes an average of one or more subsequent nuclear reactions, thus leading to the possibility of a self-propagating series of these reactions. The specific nu ...
Sterling North
Thomas Sterling North (November 4, 1906 – December 21, 1974) was an American writer. He is best known for the children's novel '' Rascal'', a bestseller in 1963.
Biography
Early life and family
North's maternal grandparents, James Herve ...