(Summary is that there was a "Russian Flu" epidemic in the 1890s that raged around the world for a couple of years and then faded. This was probably not really a type of influenza but instead OC43 which people still catch but it's just one of many varieties of a "cold".)
Comments
Rather than "like the flu" maybe more "like HCoV-OC43". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_coronavirus_OC43
(Summary is that there was a "Russian Flu" epidemic in the 1890s that raged around the world for a couple of years and then faded. This was probably not really a type of influenza but instead OC43 which people still catch but it's just one of many varieties of a "cold".)