This current pandemic is falling on a presidential election year in the United States. How did the 1918-1920 flu pandemic affect the 1920 presidential election?

How do historians determine that past epidemics and plagues such as the plague of Athens or the Antonine Plague are diseases known presently to us instead of previously unknown novel diseases (from isolated populations or animal species) that died out?

What were state responses to previous pandemics like? I was specifically thinking of the 1665 outbreak of bubonic plague in England but am curious if any large scale intervention efforts existed in the past, considering people on the whole were less scientifically literate.

Great idea, I would like to know the history of the cold, do we know its origins and when it became the perrenial seasonal infection? Has the greater development of transport heightened its strength?

I also ant to plug a previous AskHistorians podcast episode about the outbreak of Plauge in Marseille and thelocal and national response.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/6njkxj/askhistorians_podcast_090_la_peste_the_great/

Did people hoarding household supplies (e.g. toilet paper), food, or other items on the eve of a big scare (biological or otherwise) have a substantial impact on a country's economy? I'm interested mainly in 20th century examples, but also from any earlier time in the modern era.

Why do so many diseases throughout history appear to originate in China? Is it a function of their population density? The Silk Road trade? Did some of them actually originate elsewhere but the nearest known place the Europeans could trace it back to was China?

The Spanish Flu is named Spanish Flu because they apparently didn´t censor their media as heavily on it as other nations did. If that is the case, why wasn´t it censored as heavily as in other affected nations?

I work in a university that (as of Monday) is stopping lectures because of the Coronavirus. The most recent example that I could find of a similar action was when Cambridge closed for the 1665 outbreak of plague (which famously sent Newton out into the countryside where he got bopped on the head by an apple, and also invented calculus because he was bored).

Have there been any other examples since then of universities (especially in Britain) closing because of an outbreak of disease?

How big of a role did the Plague of Athens play in the Peloponnesian War? I don't know much about the Plague of Athens, but I read somewhere that it ended up killing roughly 25% of the city's population. Was the plague enough to give the Spartans a considerable enough advantage?

Was a memorial ever dedicated for victims of the 1918 influenza outbreak? Or any other modern pandemic?

I can think of war memorials, memorials for accidents, and memorials of natural disasters, but can't think of any for diseases.

I have a history meme that I'd like to get verified if any medieval scholars happen to know:
I heard a Pope lit holy fires around the Vatican to prevent the spread of the plague. The meme part goes that fleas are attracted to fire (thermal stimuli) and jumped in - thus saving the Vatican.

Has the flu always been a winter annoyance? If not, why does it spread so much nowadays? I know that it's existed for millenia but I can't find many sources on it being a "yearly" issue prior to the 1800s.

What are some good books on the overall history of pandemics, comparing how deadly they were, how they were treated, how they were rationalized, the effects of each pandemic on various societies, etc?

This weekend we saw young Americans in cities all over the country ignore the risk and go out to bars, restaurants, and nightclubs. Young adults were the highest-risk group during the Spanish Flu. Was it difficult to get them to respect quarantine guidelines back then, despite the risk?

How did nation states coordinate their response to the Spanish flu in 1918? Did citizens know about the pandemic through news reporting or government announcements? Were the most afflicted areas poorly prepared or did they not properly understand the threat?

Like we are making memes about the Covid 19 pandemic, Is there any evidence of jokes/humour being made about a past pandemic (eg. Spanish flu or the plague)?

In the generations that followed The Black Death, did any particularly interesting patterns of government or economics pop up?

With such a massive number of people dying, I can't help but think that the collective trauma might have had some far-reaching effects

Why is it that when it comes to the Spanish Flu, there seems to be a dearth of media representation? I cannot think of a film or book that depicts characters having to live through it, whereas I can number off plenty depicting World War I and the Roaring Twenties in general. Was it just not as collectively well remembered?

This all got me very interested in how WWII forced adherents of laisez-faire economics to drastically intervene in the domestic sphere. What are some good books about the war economy?

When the Bubonic Plague was afflicting Europe, were there governmental efforts to suppress people who were selling fake cures?

What do we know about viruses and vaccines now (or by 2000, I suppose, per the 20-year rule) that we didn’t know during the Spanish Flu outbreak? How much have we learned?

With retail and gatherings shutting down, what can we expect after the pandemic is over? Historically, did people adjust to the new normal (whatever that was) or was there a boom of festivals, gatherings, and new commerce once the pandemic was over?

In previous pandemics such as the plague of 1348, without medical attention and the false beliefs of the people, how were the diseases stopped before everyone was dead?

There is a lot of talk about ways that the COVID-19 outbreak is likely to change American society forever. What lasting societal changes came about in America as a result of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic?

Did the Spanish Flu hasten the end of World War 1?

Poland and the Black Death?

So there's a lot of economic doom and gloom because of the Corona virus pandemic. What economic measures were taken by states and how fast did economies bounce back after major pandemics (particular the 1918 Spanish Flu)?

How did the Spanish flu impact the economy?

Was there a global effect on the economy after the Spanish Flu or did the aftermath of World War I overshadow any detrimental economic effects (for the victors at least)?

Would it be fair to say that the most significant contribution of the U.S. to World War I was bringing the "Spanish Flu" to Europe?