The flu claimed 50 million to 100 million lives. In 1919, nurses in Salt Lake City were in short supply and drawing unprecedented wages. Although winding down, the effects of the Spanish flu epidemic still raged in places. Health was also a major concern then - as it is now. Armistice Day set the stage for what would be the world’s worst war (again, to that point) 20 years later, killing about 85 million or roughly 3 percent of the earth’s population. It was the worst war the world had ever known - to that point, anyway. Soldiers from Utah were trickling home, scarred and broken from a global conflict that, according to some sources, claimed an estimated 16 million lives. In 1919, on what is normally the cheeriest day of the year, the dust was barely settling from Armistice Day, a month and a half earlier. Today we have unsettled politics, American troops fighting in faraway places, controversial drug laws, medical care issues, and immigration conflicts while - well, just like they did back then. Although filled with hope and promise, New Year’s Day a hundred years ago more than suggests that the world is no better off today than it was in 1919.
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