Showing results by author "Catharine Arnold" in All Categories

In the dying months of World War I, Spanish flu suddenly overwhelmed the world, killing between 50 and 100 million people. Nowhere escaped this common enemy: in Britain, 250,000 people died, and in the United States it was 750,000, while European deaths reached over two million. The numbers are staggering. And yet at the time, news of the danger was suppressed for fear of impacting wartime morale. Behind the numbers are human lives, stories of those who suffered and fought it - in the hospitals and laboratories.

In Globe Catherine Arnold takes the listener on a tour of Shakespeare's London, looking at how they shaped each other. Acting turned into a trade, and troupes of touring players perfected their craft. Shakespeare's own company, the Chamberlain's Men, opened the Globe Playhouse on Bankside in 1599, creating a new focal point for the city.

In January 1918, as World War I raged on, a new and terrifying virus began to spread across the globe. In three successive waves, from 1918 to 1919, influenza killed more than 50 million people. German soldiers termed it Blitzkatarrh, British soldiers referred to it as Flanders Grippe, but worldwide, the pandemic gained the notorious title of “Spanish flu”. Nowhere on earth escaped: the United States recorded 550,000 deaths (five times its total military fatalities in the war) while European deaths totaled more than two million.