The Transylvania Times -

As we ponder what to be grateful for in 2020, it can serve us well to look back at history. The year 1918 was, believe it or not, far worse than 2020. World War I had claimed an estimated 16 million lives and 116,516 of those were American. The influenza epidemic, the deadliest flu pandemic ever recorded, swept the world that same year and killed roughly 675,000 people in the United States and up to 50 million people worldwide. During its peak, it is estimated that 21,000 Americans died in a single week in October 1918. In that same month more than 5,000 died just in North Carolina. By the...