Poorly dated (and contextualized) photos relayed on social networks.

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screenshot / Twitter

  • Four historic snapshots have fascinated many Internet users since their publication on Twitter a few days ago. 

  • These archival images show women wearing different types of masks.

    All of them would have been taken, according to the legend that accompanies them, during the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918.

  • In reality, all these scenes were immortalized at very different times in the 20th century ... and in very different contexts, unrelated to the Spanish flu.

Since the start of the coronavirus pandemic, many Internet users have not failed to establish a historical parallel with the Spanish flu epidemic that began in 1918. Several specialists may have shown that the two health crises do not did not necessarily have as much in common as one might think at first glance, comparisons between the two situations continue to flourish on the Web.

1918 influenza pandemic pic.twitter.com/ROP5dpb73V

- LEARN HISTORY (@earnkno) January 30, 2021

Thus, a tweet published at the end of January and shared more than 7,000 times claims to show, through four black and white photos, daily scenes of the "flu pandemic 1918".

Each photo shows women wearing masks of various shapes and designs, from a cover covering the upper body to more aesthetic scarves, including cones protecting the nose or gas masks.

In fact, none of these photos were taken in 1918 or bear any relation to the Spanish flu.

FAKE OFF

The photo of the two women in conversation was taken on a street in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1953 by The Associated Press.

"Meriel Bush, on the left, and Ruth Neuer, wear gas capes […] to try to protect themselves from the and the smoke which hit Philadelphia for the second consecutive day", specifies the legend of the press agency.

The second scene, that of the conical masks, was immortalized in 1939 in Montreal, Canada, the Alamy photo bank tells us, which specifies that this plastic device was intended to protect against snowstorms.

The third, on which two women equipped with imposing masks, reminiscent of gas masks, stand near a stroller, dates from 1941 and was taken during a preventive exercise in the middle of World War II, according to Getty Images.

Finally, the last archive has nothing to do with a real or simulated crisis situation since the masks worn by the two young women immortalized in 1913 in an unknown place (but probably in Germany) are none other than "nose veils. Inspired by Turkish fashion of the time, according to Alamy.

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