Timeline of influenza

In addition to specific year/period-related events, there is the seasonal flu that kills between 250,000 and 500,000 people every year and has claimed between 340 million and 1 billion human lives throughout history.

Flu has been called various names including tac,[23] coqueluche,[24][25][26] the new disease,[27] gruppie,[28] grippe, castrone,[29][30]: 17  influenza,[31] and commonly just catarrh[32][33][34] by many chroniclers and physicians throughout the ages.

The disease seems to have been present in the northeast United States as early as October 1732, after which reports of it came out of Newfoundland, Barbados, Jamaica, Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

While it prevailed extensively in Italy, the rumor of a "great epidemic" of "influenza" in that country spread faster than the disease itself, and the name came to be used in England, at least for the duration of the outbreak.

In the summer of that year, when the disease hit England, the Royal College of Physicians formally adopted the Italian word as the official name.

[13]: 11  It then spread westward, invading Germany, Hungary, Denmark, England, Scotland, France, and Italy successively throughout the year and being reported finally in Switzerland in October.

[13]: 11  Observed influenza activity then remained low for nearly a year before the disease appeared in the Western Hemisphere, breaking out in the US states of Georgia and New York in September 1789.

[13]: 11  After a short reprieve, the influenza resumed epidemic proportions in the spring of 1790 in the northeast United States and perhaps some other parts,[13]: 12  declining about the first week of June.