Spanish flu pandemic
Flu infects a third of humanity and kills more than the war
One of the first recorded outbreaks hit a Kansas army camp in March 1918, though the virus's origin is still debated. Troops spread it worldwide, infecting about a third of humanity. Estimates of deaths range from 17 to 50 million, more than the war itself killed.
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Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Europe
- 1905 Einstein's miracle year and relativity — 13 years earlier
- 1919 Treaty of Versailles — 1 year later
- 1928 Discovery of penicillin — 10 years later
- 1933 Hitler comes to power — 15 years later
- 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War — 18 years later
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 1917 October Revolution — 1 year earlier
- 1917–1922 Russian Civil War — 1 year earlier
- 1929–1933 Collectivization in the Soviet Union — 11 years later
- 1936–1938 Great Purge — 18 years later
- 1941–1944 Siege of Leningrad — 23 years later
Middle East
- 1908 Oil struck at Masjed Soleyman — 10 years earlier
- 1908 Young Turk Revolution — 10 years earlier
- 1915 Armenian genocide — 3 years earlier
- 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement — 2 years earlier
- 1916–1918 The Arab Revolt — 2 years earlier
Africa
- 1897 The British sack Benin City — 21 years earlier
- 1904–1908 The Herero and Nama genocide — 14 years earlier
- 1922 Discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb — 4 years later
- 1935–1937 Italy invades Ethiopia — 17 years later
Asia
- 1896–1898 Philippine Revolution — 22 years earlier
- 1911–1912 Xinhai Revolution — 7 years earlier
- 1923 Great Kantō earthquake — 5 years later
- 1931 China floods — 13 years later
- 1934–1935 Long March — 16 years later
Americas
- 1910–1920 Mexican Revolution — 8 years earlier
- 1913 Ford's moving assembly line — 5 years earlier
- 1914 Opening of the Panama Canal — 4 years earlier
- 1914 Death of Martha, the last passenger pigeon — 4 years earlier
- 1929 Wall Street Crash and the Great Depression — 11 years later
Oceania
- 1893 New Zealand women win the vote — 25 years earlier
- 1911 Amundsen reaches the South Pole — 7 years earlier
- 1912 The death of Scott's polar party — 6 years earlier
- 1936 Death of the last thylacine — 18 years later
- 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor — 23 years later
Alive at the time
- Thomas Edison (aged 71)
- Nikola Tesla (aged 62)
- Marie Curie (aged 51)
- Mahatma Gandhi (aged 49)
- Vladimir Lenin (aged 48)
- Ernest Rutherford (aged 47)
- Winston Churchill (aged 44)
- Joseph Stalin (aged 40)
- Albert Einstein (aged 39)
- Pablo Picasso (aged 37)