The Spanish Flu Started in Kansas — Here's Why History Got It Wrong

Añadido: 2026-04-30

[00:00:02]The Spanish flu didn't start in Spain.

[00:00:03]It started right here on a Kansas army base. March 1918.

[00:00:08]A cook reports sick with fever.

[00:00:11]Within days over a thousand soldiers collapse.

[00:00:15]These infected troops shipped out to Europe spreading the virus across the Western Front.

[00:00:20]But wartime censors in America, Britain, France, and Germany buried every report of the outbreak. Spain stayed neutral in the war. Their newspapers reported freely about the pandemic [music] ravaging their population. The world only read Spain's coverage. So history blamed them for a pandemic they never started.