The 1918 influenza epidemic in Samoa

New Zealand troops had taken German Samoa without a fight in August 1914. In November 1918 the military administration let the steamer Talune berth at Apia with influenza aboard, and within weeks more than a fifth of the population had died. Neighbouring American Samoa, which quarantined itself, escaped. The disaster fed the Mau movement, and New Zealand formally apologised in 2002.