On March 11, 1918, the first cases of the historic 1918 influenza were reported at a hospital at Fort Riley, Kansas. A private came in complaining of symptoms. A few hours later, over 100 soldiers were reporting similar symptoms. Other camps and prisons saw outbreaks, and the disease soon traveled to Europe with American soldiers on their way to the battlefields of France. This strain of influenza eventually killed 675,000 Americans and more than 20 million people worldwide.
