10. The Spanish Flu pandemic may have had its source in China
Although China possessed a large population, with much of it contained in crowded cities and villages, its mortality rate was lower than most other nations. China was hit during the first wave of the pandemic, and according to scholars in the 21st century may have been the source of the worldwide plague of flu. The disease first appeared in China in the early winter of 1917-18, and was identified by officials as a pneumonic plague. British officials at the legation in Beijing reported that the illness which swept across northern China was actually a virulent form of influenza. The outbreak occurred at the same time that British and French emissaries were gathering Chinese laborers for transportation to the Western Front in Europe.
The workers were shipped to Canada via the port of Vancouver, where they were kept in isolation, not for health reasons, but instead because of the racist attitudes towards the Chinese prevalent in Canada. The workers were kept aboard the trains as they traveled eastward, and at longer stops were quarantined in secure compounds. When several reported sore throats and other symptoms, they were treated by Canadian doctors with various nostrums, but not isolated from their fellow Chinese. Shortly after their arrival in Europe, the flu appeared among the troops on the Western Front, leading scholars to attribute the epicenter of the pandemic as the provinces of northern China, though the theory is disputed by historians and epidemiologists.