The armistice which ended the Great War, the War to end all wars, officially took effect at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of the year 1918. Within little more than two decades, the War to end all wars had to "Take a number". And the truth is, the Great war did not end because of any military victory, or diplomatic solution. It ground to a halt because the world-wide influenza pandemic of 1918 sapped the combatants of their ability to continue fighting.
It was misnamed the "Spanish flu" (It probably originated in Kansas) because, as a non-belligerent in the war, Spain was one of the few nations in the world who could admit how devastated its population really was. The pandemic touched every part of the Earth. We will never know how many people died, but educated guesses continue to be adjusted upward. In the U.S. alone, 500,000 people died. Some places ran out of wood to make coffins, and had to bury people in mass graves to protect the public health. If an invading enemy had slaughtered half a million Americans, we would never forget. But it was a microscopic virus, and we made ourselves forget as quickly as we could!
Considering how tenuous our life on this planet really is, why do we continue to kill each other for imagined political gains?
