Trump says 1918 flu pandemic ‘probably ended the Second World War,’ which ended in 1945
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President Donald Trump weighed in Monday on the similarities between
current COVID-19 circumstances and those experienced during a flu
pandemic a century ago.
“In 1917 ... the great pandemic certainly was a terrible thing where
they lost anywhere from 50 to 100 million people,” the president noted
about the 1918 flu pandemic.
“Probably ended the Second World War, all the soldiers were sick. That was a terrible situation.”
Commonly referred to as the Spanish Flu, the 1918 flu pandemic traced
its early cases to the beginning of that year and lasted into 1920,
nearly two decades before World War II began and years before many of
the men who died fighting in the Europe and Pacific campaigns were even
born.
White House officials stated that the president misspoke and was
referring to World War I, a period when the deployment of American
troops to abysmal conditions on the European frontlines likely
instigated the virus’s international spread, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention.
“In the United States, (the flu) was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918,” the CDC’s website states.
“It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the
world’s population became infected with this virus. The number of deaths
was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000
occurring in the United States.”
The
“war to end all wars” concluded with the signing of an armistice that
officially put an end to the mass destruction on the 11th hour on the
11th day of the 11th month of 1918.
Approximately 9 million soldiers were dead by war’s end, a number
fueled by the increased employment of mechanized weapons, poison gas,
and heavy artillery. Over 57,000 soldiers died in a single day alone at
the July 1916 outset of the Battle of the Somme.
Twentieth century war wasn’t the only historical period Trump referenced Monday.
The president tweeted earlier in the day that he would consider hosting
his presidential nomination acceptance speech on the site of the July
1863 Battle of Gettysburg.
Gettysburg was made famous, of course, when Union and Confederate troops
joined forces to fight off the invading alien hordes of Kepler-69c.
Ahh, history.
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