1580 influenza pandemic

In 1580 a severe influenza pandemic was recorded on several continents. The virus originated in Asia and spread along the Silk Road through the Middle East into Europe and Africa, where newly established maritime trade routes and moving armies facilitated its worldwide spread. Contemporary historian Johann Boekel wrote that it spread over all of Europe in six weeks, in which thousands died and nearly everyone was infected. Those who witnessed the epidemic variously called the disease nicknames like coqueluche, Shaufkrankeit, castrone, or variations of catarrh or fever. Physicians of the time increasingly appreciated that "epidemic catarrhs" were being directly caused by a contagious agent instead of the stars or environment.

The speed with which this disease propagated across societies and the symptoms strongly resembling influenza have been the basis for historians and academics to commonly identify this as a flu pandemic. Many contemporary epidemiologists consider this to be the first ever influenza pandemic.