The World in 1918 the year the guns stopped

The flu reached nearly every country in about a year, at a time when no aircraft carried passengers. It killed more people than four years of fighting had, and India lost more of them than anywhere else.

Life back then

From the autumn the flu went wherever the war had sent ships and trains. Schools, churches and theaters shut in city after city around the world, and gravediggers could not keep up. People were told to wear gauze masks, and some towns fined anyone who spat in the street. This flu killed strong young adults fastest, so it took the same age group the fighting was taking. Families waited on the post for news of both.

The year in 8 events

• 🕊️Jan 8 President Wilson sets out fourteen points he wants any peace deal to include.
• 🗳️Feb 6 A new British law gives most women over 30 the vote for the first time.
• ⚔️Mar 21 Germany throws its last reserves at the Western Front and pushes the British line back for miles.
• 🕯️Jul 17 The former Tsar Nicholas II and his family are shot in a cellar at Yekaterinburg.
• 🛡️Aug 8 Allied tanks and troops break the German line at Amiens. German commanders call it the black day of their army.
• 🕯️Sep 28 A large parade goes ahead in Philadelphia despite warnings, and the city's flu outbreak turns deadly within days.
• 📜Oct 30 The Ottoman Empire signs an armistice aboard a warship at Mudros and leaves the war.
• 🤝Nov 11 The armistice takes effect at 11 in the morning and the fighting stops. Poland regains its independence the same day.

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