In 1918, the Spanish flu pandemic affected the global population in the midst of World War I. It was so named because the illness “received greater press attention after it moved from France to Spain in November 1918.”

Last week, the President said he didn’t know that people still died from the flu. This produced clickbait articles pointing out the ignorance of both reality and family history, since his own grandfather succumbed to the virus.

Ignorance is more common than common sense.

I knew they my great-grandmother was left a widow and that my grandfather had lost his father at a young age. But I didn’t know why.

Turns out that my own great-grandfather was one of 17 million people in India that died of the Spanish flu in 1918.