A bit of history: The Influenza Epidemic

In the year 1918, an epidemic, or rather a pandemic, swept across the nation and throughout the world killing nearly 70 million people. In America alone, more than 28% of the population was infected and over 500,000 died in less than a year. This virus was highly contagious and was capable of taking one's life away the same day it was caught. For example, a person could wake up feeling fine and come down with small symptons around noon (such as a sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, headache, sinus irritations...), and be dead by nightfall. It all happened that fast. People were dying left and right and it soon got to the point where there were no longer enough coffins to keep all those who were dead, let alone was there time to bury the coffins they had.
This disease completely devastated the world and by the end, everybody had lost somebody - a child, parent, sibling, spouse, friend, relative... No longer did people feel complete. Something or someone would be forever gone from their life. They probably had that feeling where they just wanted to go to sleep until everything was back to normal and the world was right again and full of loved ones. I think this was the reason that the epidemic seems to have been so forgotten. The only way they could make themselves feel any better was to put the past behind them and forget about their bad fortunes. That is most likely the reason that this huge malady did not make it into most history books - they just didn't want to think about it, much less, pass stories of it down to younger generations.
I almost think the story of influenza taking over the world is more interesting than that of Anastasia, previously posted, and it is astonishing to me that such a worldwide devastation has rarely been talked about.