Statistically, the worst pandemic of the modern era occurred in 1918, when the so-called Spanish flu swept the globe. In reality, it was not Spanish at all. It was just that Spain, neutral in World War I and thus a country that did not censor its press, reported it honestly and therefore was erroneously stuck with the rap. Conservative estimates have traditionally pegged the worldwide death toll at 40 to 50 million, but recent analyses suggest it might have been twice that, dwarfing the toll of the brutal and bloody world war that immediately preceded it.
