1918. Society (3)

Society

1918. The worst pandemic to afflict mankind since the Black Death of the mid-14th century, "Spanish" influenza," (which actually began in China) sweeps through Europe, America and the Orient killing 21.64 million--more than 1 percent of the world's population--while the European War ends after having killed some 10 million. Nearly 25% of Americans fall ill, some 500,000 die including 19,000 at New York, schools are closed, parades and Liberty Loan rallies banned, hospitals jammed,coffin supplies exhausted at Baltimore and Washington.

1918. Emergency tent hospitals go up throughout America as the Spanish influenza epidemic taxes regular hospital facilities.

1918. The International Church of the Four-Square Gospel is founded at Los Angeles by Canadian-American evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson, 29, a divorcee who has arrived penniless but offers hope and salvation to Southern and Midwestern migrants newly arrived in Southern California. McPherson will build a large following that will provide funds to build the huge Angelus Temple from which her sermons will be broadcast on radio. Patriotic-religious music played by a 50-piece band will precede the sermons and the McPherson movement based largely on faith healing, adult baptism, and Fundamentalist spectacle, will attract thousands.

1918. "Believe It or Not!" is published for the first time by New York Globe sports cartoonist Robert Ripley, who sketches figures of men who have set records for such unlikely events as running backward and broad jumping on ice.

To be continued.