Brevig Mission

 Brevig Mission is a very small village in western Alaska, bordering on the Bering Straits which separate that state from the Russian Federation.  It is named for the Norwegian Lutheran pastor who served the mission at the beginning of the 20th Century when it was founded.  In the 2010 Census, Brevig Mission had a population of 388 people, 90% of whom were from the Inuit tribe of indigenous people.

In 1918, Brevig Mission had a population of 80 people.  In only five days in November of that year, 72 of them died as a result of the so-called "Spanish flu."  Around the world about 50 million died over a two year period as a result of the deadliest pandemic in modern history.

"Lasting from February 1918 until April 1920, it infected about one-third of the world's population.  The first observations of the illness were documented in the United States in Fort Riley, Kansas and New York City, as well as in France, Germany and the United Kingdom."

"Historian Alfred W. Crosby stated in 2003 that the flu originated in Kansas.  In 2004, Author John M. Barry described a January 1918 outbreak in Haskell County, KS as the point of origin."  

As the USA, France, Germany and the UK were engaged at the time in The Great War (WWI),  their newspapers minimized reports of the influenza to maintain public morale.  However, in neutral Spain, news of the epidemic was so widespread, even King Alphonso XIII was gravely ill, that it gave rise to naming it the "Spanish Flu."

"As there were no antiviral drugs to treat the virus, and no antibiotics to treat the secondary bacterial infections, doctors would rely on a random assortment of medicines such as aspirin, quinine, castor oil and iodine."  

In the USA, between 500,000 to 800,000 people died as a result of the "Spanish Flu."  In Brazil, the number of fatalities was 300,000, including President Rodrigues Alves.  One of those American victims was Frederick Trump, a German immigrant and the grandfather of President Donald Trump.