16. The Spanish Flu was contracted by many noted leaders of the day
The Spanish Flu was first reported worldwide when it struck Alfonso XIII, the King of Spain, in 1918. His illness, which was grave and reported around the world, gave the impression that the flu originated in Spain and thus bestowed the name Spanish Flu on the pandemic. He survived. He was far from the only notable to contract the illness. In the United States, President Woodrow Wilson contracted the disease, and some believe its ravages contributed to his suffering a stroke later. Walt Disney contracted the flu while in training to serve in the Ambulance Corps at an Army camp outside of Chicago. Artist Edvard Munch suffered through the flu, survived, and later painted Self-Portrait with the Spanish Flu.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, at the time the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, contracted the flu while returning from France aboard USS Leviathan. The flu led to pneumonia, and Roosevelt was carried off the ship on a stretcher upon arrival in the United States (he was not yet confined to a wheelchair). Some who did not survive the flu were artist Gustav Klimt, Frederick Trump (grandfather of US President Donald Trump), Bill Yawkey (owner of the Detroit Tigers Baseball Club), and Edmond Rostand, whose most famed work was the play Cyrano de Bergerac. Some sources claim the Dodge Brothers, John and Horace, who founded the Dodge Automobile Company, died of Spanish Flu, though others state that Horace died of cirrhosis of the liver.