How will these resources help you?

The 1918 influenza or ‘Spanish flu’ pandemic is often taught as a footnote to the First World War, despite the fact that it caused more deaths in less time than the war itself. This topic presents a good opportunity to discuss with students why some histories are promoted over others – are some inherently more important, or just more interesting to us? Does it depend on how well it is documented? Does the way we tell the history of an event affect whether people want to engage with it? For example, the First World War has ‘winners’ and ‘losers’, whereas it is hard to argue that there were any winners during the 1918 influenza pandemic. Equally, the fact that it was (to a large extent) out of our control makes the story potentially more scary and less appealing to tell. The COVID-19 pandemic has rendered it more important than ever to understand past pandemics. It feels critical that we understand how people responded to such adversity in the past and what effects these large-scale events have had on the world.