Q 01/05

The 1918 pandemic was caused by which subtype of the influenza A virus?

A) H1N1

B) H2N2

C) H3N2

D) H5N1

Answer · why

A) H1N1

Its descendants caused every later flu pandemic, and a novel H1N1 returned to cause the 2009 pandemic.

Q 02/05

Roughly what share of the world's population was infected by the pandemic?

A) About a tenth

B) About a third

C) About half

D) About three-quarters

Answer · why

B) About a third

That was an estimated 500 million people out of 1.8 to 1.9 billion.

Q 03/05

Why did the pandemic come to be called the 'Spanish' flu?

A) it began in Barcelona

B) the king of Spain died of it

C) its neutral press reported it freely

D) Spanish troops carried it to France

Answer · why

C) its neutral press reported it freely

Wartime censors in belligerent countries suppressed bad news; Spanish officials were baffled to learn other countries called it 'the Spanish grip'.

Q 04/05

The earliest probable cases were documented in March 1918 in which US state?

A) Massachusetts

B) New York

C) Pennsylvania

D) Kansas

Answer · why

D) Kansas

Cases in Haskell County had prompted the local doctor Loring Miner to warn the Public Health Service as early as January.

Q 05/05

The 1918 flu is conventionally dated from Albert Gitchell's case. What was his job at Camp Funston?

A) an army cook

B) a chaplain

C) a bugler

D) a medical orderly

Answer · why

A) an army cook

Within days 522 men at the camp had reported sick, and by 11 March the virus had reached Queens, New York.