A hundred years before online mask arguments, San Francisco police were arresting people for walking the streets with their faces uncovered.

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A hundred years before online mask arguments, San Francisco police were arresting people for walking the streets with their faces uncovered. During the 1918 flu pandemic, cities in the US introduced mask mandates, fines, and even 'mask police' who patrolled public spaces. There was an Anti-Mask League that packed a 3,000-seat auditorium to protest what they saw as an attack on freedom and business. Newspapers printed furious letters about fake science, personal rights, and government overreach that read uncannily like modern comment sections. Many cities relaxed rules when cases dropped, only to bring them back after a deadlier second wave. The past is not just old photos; it is a loop of the same fears, politics, and fragile patience replaying with different clothes and technology.

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A hundred years before online mask arguments, San Francisco police were arresting people for walking the streets with their faces uncovered.

A closer look

A bigger world.One discoveryat a time.

Keep exploring

Your bright white bathroom is basically a fossil from the 1918 flu pandemic.

In 1918, people were so desperate to return to normal that they helped create the deadliest wave of the flu themselves.

During the 1918 flu, schools in parts of the U.S.

In 1665, Cambridge University closed during the Great Plague.

How dancing skeletons helped people face the Black Death

Deadliest pandemic of the 20th century was not called the Spanish Flu because it started in Spain; it was called that because censorship made Spain look like the only honest country.

A bigger world.
One discovery
at a time.