The Spanish Flu

Short History Of...

Noiser

History

4.8 • 4.1K Ratings

🗓️ 22 June 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The influenza pandemic of 1918-20 infected about one-third of the world’s population at the time, killing at least 50 million people. Occurring during the First World War, what became known as the Spanish Flu spread rapidly as soldiers moved across continents. It overwhelmed hospitals, led to mass graves, and disrupted societies worldwide. But what made the disease so deadly? Was it really Spanish? And what lessons had been learned by the time Covid-19 emerged, a century later? This is a Short History Of The Spanish Flu. A Noiser Production. Written by Nicola Rayner. With thanks to Mark Honigsbaum, a medical historian, and author of The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria, and Hubris. Get every episode of Short History Of a week early with Noiser+. You’ll also get ad-free listening, bonus material, and early access to shows across the Noiser network. Click the Noiser+ banner to get started. Or, if you’re on Spotify or Android, go to noiser.com/subscriptions. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the year 2000.
0:02.0	Everyone, everywhere is having fun, except me.
0:06.0	On BBC Eye Player.
0:08.0	I worry you're growing up too fast.
0:10.0	Yeah, we can't be your little duck here forever, can I?
0:13.0	Inspired by a true story.
0:15.0	You walk out this house a boy, one day you'll come back.
0:17.0	When you do, you will be a man.
0:20.0	Oh, and hard your breath.
0:21.6	What it feels like for a girl.
0:22.6	I wish I could look like you.
0:24.6	Bebe, you can.
0:25.6	Why don't you?
0:26.6	Watch on BBC Eye Player.
0:32.6	It is the morning of March the 4th, 1918, at Camp Funston in Fort Riley, Kansas.
0:43.3	The wind slices through the rows of wooden barracks as the head nurse of the base hospital
0:48.3	pulls her wool coat tighter around herself and trudges across the frozen ground.
1:01.0	A pale light spills over the flat horizon of the Kansas Plains as the sun rises, illuminating the sprawl of what is one of the largest army training camps in the country.
1:10.0	Over 50,000 men are courted here.
1:13.6	Raw recruits, some barely out of boyhood, preparing for a war far away in Europe.
1:20.6	The nurse passes clusters of them, hunched together in their great coats, outside the low-slung wooden buildings, hands cupped around morning cigarettes.
1:33.3	She reaches the hospital at the edge of the camp, a loose huddle of long, low wards quickly erected.
	...

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