Was the flu common long time ago?

Yes, the flu has been around for a long time. The earliest known record of the flu dates back to 412 BC, when Hippocrates described an outbreak of a respiratory illness that spread throughout Greece. Since then, the flu has been recorded throughout history, causing pandemics that have killed millions of people. Some of the most notable flu pandemics include the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 50-100 million people worldwide, and the 1957 Asian Flu pandemic, which killed an estimated 1-2 million people.