03/11/2026
Influenza is NO JOKE!
On the morning of March 11, 1918, an Army private reported to the camp hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas complaining of fever, sore throat, and headache. By noon, the camp’s hospital had over 100 sick soldiers with similar complaints. By week’s end, that number jumped to 500.
That spring, 48 otherwise healthy soldiers died at Fort Riley, with the cause of death listed as pneumonia. Then the sickness then seemed to disappear, leaving as quickly as it had come.
But when soldiers from Kansas were deployed across the Atlantic several months later, they brought something with them: a tiny, silent companion. Almost immediately, the Kansas sickness resurfaced in Europe. American, English, French, and German soldiers got sick. As it spread, the microbe mutated, becoming more and more deadly. By the time the silent traveller came back to America, it had become a relentless killer.
The killer was identified as influenza, but it was unlike any strain ever seen. As it spread across the country, hospitals overfilled, death carts roamed the streets, and helpless city officials dug mass graves. It was the worst epidemic the nation had ever endured, killing over 600,000 Americans alone.
📸: National Archives and Records Administration
