Syndemic
The worst of the 20th century influenza pandemics was the 1918 pandemic, where between 20-40 percent of the world’s population became ill between 40-100 million people died. More people died of the so-called Spanish flu (caused by the H1N1 viral strain) pandemic in the single year of 1918 than during all four-years of the Black Death. The pandemic had devastating effects as disease spread along trade and shipping routes and other corridors of human movement until it had circled the globe. InIndia, the mortality rate reached 50 per 1,000 population. Arriving during the closing phase of the World War I, the pandemic impacted mobilized national armies. Half of U.S. soldiers who died in the "Great War," for example, were victims of influenza. It is estimated that almost ¾ of a million Americans died during the pandemic. In part, the death toll during the pandemic was caused by viral pneumonia characterized by extensive bleeding in the lungs resulting in suffocation. Many victims died within 48 hours of the appearance of the first symptom. It was not uncommon for people who appeared to be quite healthy in the morning to have died by sunset. Among those who survived the first several days, however, many died of secondary bacterial pneumonia. It has been argued that countless numbers of those who expired quickly from the disease were co-infected with tuberculosis, which would explain the notable plummet in TB cases after 1918.
List of First World War Victoria Cross recipients
The First World War, also known as the Great War and in the United States as World War I, was a global military conflict that embroiled most of the world's great powers, assembled in two opposing alliances: the Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance. More than 70 million military personnel were mobilised in one of the largest wars in history. The main combatants descended into a state of total war, directing their entire scientific and industrial capabilities into the war effort. Over 15 million people were killed, making it one of the deadliest conflicts in history. The proximate cause of war was the assassination on 28 June 1914 of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. Soon after, a system of alliances were activated that would see Europe at war. The Western Front saw the largest concentration of Commonwealth troops with soldiers occupying sectors of the line from the North Sea to the Orne River.