These are days like none of us have seen before. The COVID-19 pandemic has gotten everyone's attention. And it is of little comfort to know this has happened before.

But it has. In fact, as a flu pandemic affected Purdue football and the entire University 102 years ago. And it goes without saying that we are all hopeful that COVID-19 doesn't approach the severity of the 1918 flu pandemic.

In the midst of World War I, a flu pandemic broke out and caused a delay to the start of the 1918 season. Purdue didn't play its first game of the '18 season until Oct. 26 under coach Arthur "Butch" Scanlon. It finished its schedule six weeks later on Nov. 30 and posted a 3-3 record. But the Boilermakers went 1-0 in the Big Ten thanks to a 7-3 win over Chicago.

An excerpt of John Norberg's recent book "Ever True: 150 Years of Giant Leaps at Purdue University," indicates the following:

The global influenza pandemic of 1918–1919, which infected about five hundred million people worldwide and killed at least fifty million, also impacted Purdue, where eleven people died. In a 1918 Alumnus, editor George Ade reported: “Oct. 17—the whole state is still under lock and key on account of the flu and Purdue is run­ning on one cylinder. Oct. 18—Further suspension of University classes announced by Dr. Stone (because of flu). Sad news received—Glossop, football captain in 1913, a fine athlete and popular fellow, dies at Camp Taylor of influenza.”

Lou Somogyi, senior editor of the Notre Dame Rivals site BlueAndGold, also detailed what happened in that difficult year with much of it occurring right before the season. In late September, the Spanish influenza epidemic that would afflict 20 million Americans and kill about 675,000 in the United States had hit.

Worldwide, approximately 500 million people — about one-third of the world’s population back then — became infected and the death toll was estimated at 50 million.

According to Somogyi's article, the genesis of the pandemic in the United States struck in Boston before infiltrating Camp Devens, about 30 miles east, where 50 soldiers died Sept. 25. The spread from there went well beyond exponential.

• In Washington, D.C., all of the nurses at George Washington Hospital caught the flu, bringing the services there to a halt.

• On Oct. 10 alone, Philadelphia suffered 528 deaths.

• A week later (Oct. 17) in Chicago on “Black Thursday,” 381 died and 1,200 new cases were reported. It was decreed that no more than 10 mourners could attend a funeral.

• At Camp Grant in Rockford, Ill., 10,713 soldiers took ill, and at Camp Dodge, Iowa, the barracks had to be made into hospital wards for approximately 8,000 patients.

• In Modesto, Calif., school lessons were published in the local newspaper, and the children mailed their completed assignments to teachers at the closed schools.

Throughout the country, any area of assemblage — theaters, bars, schools, churches, sporting events, etc. — was ordered closed in efforts to keep the disease from spreading. (The World Series, won by the Boston Red Sox, was played Sept. 5-11.)

An amazing statistic that Somogyi, a noted Notre Dame sports historian, cites is that from 1917 to 1918, the life expectancy in the United States fell about 12 years, to 36.6 years for men and 42.2 years for women.

Purdue, one of the only Big Ten schools that hadn't blackballed Notre Dame in that era, made up its previously scheduled Oct. 19 game on Nov. 23 at West Lafayette. In the ninth-ever meeting between the two teams, Notre Dame romped to a 26-6 conquest. It also happened to be the debut season for legendary Irish coach Knute Rockne.

Cancellations to the sports calendar have been infrequent over the years, but there have been a few notable ones.

After the 1903 train crash in Indianapolis involving the Purdue football team making its way for a Halloween contest with Indiana, the season was cancelled. Seventeen people associated with the Boilermaker football team died that day.

There were also some schedule interruptions during World War II, but the games played on for the most part. In 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated the day before the Old Oaken Bucket game was to be played in Bloomington. The game was postponed a week, and then played on Nov. 30 as Purdue prevailed, 12-7. And, as usual during those days for Bucket games played in Bloomington, the contest ended with a on-field fisticuffs.

There were also a couple of basketball games in 1977 and '78 that were postponed temporarily due to blizzards. The most recent game postponed due to weather happened on Valentine's Day 2007. A day later, Matt Painter's second Boilermaker squad blitzed Indiana, 81-68, in a key victory in Painter's first NCAA Tournament run.

The coal strike of 1978 also caused Purdue to alter the start times of basketball games from evening to mid-afternoon, even on weekdays. This was due to lack of coal on campus and the need for efficient use of the heating resource. Earvin "Magic" Johnson's first appearance in Mackey Arena was one of those games, as Coach Fred Schaus' last Boilermaker team blew out the eventual Big Ten champion Spartans, 99-80.

But the coal strike also caused Purdue to have to forfeit hosting the early rounds of the NCAA Tournament. Old-time Purdue students will remember that president Art Hansen had pronounced that spring break was going to be extended for a week due to the energy crunch, but Purdue got a shipment of coal in late February that mitigated the crisis. After many students had made plans for the two-week hiatus, Hansen rescinded the two-week break and resumed with the normal schedule.

"Hansen was popular with the students before the abrupt change, but not as much after," Norberg said with a laugh. "Even Hansen's own son, a student at the time, was really mad at his father for the change."

Of course, after the 9-11 attacks in 2001, Purdue's Sept. 15 contest with Notre Dame was postponed until Dec. 1. Unfortunately for the Boilermakers, the Irish won a mistake-filled game, 24-18, in Ross-Ade Stadium in what was the last game of the Bob Davie era at Notre Dame.

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