The Spanish flu, as the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic became known, has been remembered by media outlets, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Throughout 2020, newspapers drew parallels between subjective experiences, social and economic effects, and measures of social distancing adopted in both contexts. In this article, we analyzed the references to the 1918-19 pandemic in "O Globo" and in "Folha de S. Paulo", between 1941 and 2020. We argue that the Spanish flu was mentioned, in that period, as a parameter for other epidemics, from the focus on the contagion and lethality of the disease. However, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the newspapers highlighted historical aspects of that pandemic and valued the dialogue with historians, from a perspective in which history appears as a lesson to be observed in the present and in the post-pandemic future.