1918 in the United States
| 1918 in the United States |
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| Timeline of United States history |
| History of the United States (1918–45) |
Events from the year 1918 in the United States.
Incumbents
Federal Government
- President: Woodrow Wilson (D-New Jersey)
- Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall (D-Indiana)
- Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White (Louisiana)
- Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-Missouri)
- Congress: 65th
Events
January–March
- January – The World Tomorrow pacifist magazine begins publication.
- January 8 – President Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech.
- February 21 – The last Carolina parakeet (the last breed of parrot native to the eastern U.S.), a male named "Incas", dies at Cincinnati Zoo.
- March – The Liberator socialist magazine begins publication.
- March 4 – A soldier at Camp Fuston, Kansas falls sick with the first confirmed case of the Spanish flu.
- March 19 – The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time (DST goes into effect on March 31).
April–June
- April 21 – The 6.7 Mw San Jacinto earthquake shook southern California with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Severe), causing $200,000 in damage, one death, and several injuries.
- May 2 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
- May 15 – The United States Post Office Department (later renamed the United States Postal Service) begins the first regular airmail service in the world (between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC).
- May 16 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is approved by the U.S. Congress.
- May 20 – The small town of Codell, Kansas is hit for the third year in a row by a tornado. Coincidentally, all three tornadoes hit on May 20, 1916, 1917, and 1918 respectively.
- June 8 – The total solar eclipse of June 8, 1918 crossed the United States from Washington State to Florida.
- June 22 – Suspects in the Chicago Restaurant Poisonings are arrested, and more than 100 waiters are taken into custody, for poisoning restaurant customers with a lethal powder called Mickey Finn.
July–September
- July 9 – Great train wreck of 1918: In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101.
- August – A deadly second wave of the Spanish flu starts in France, Sierra Leone and the United States.[1]
- August 13 – Opha May Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps.
- August 27 – Border War; Battle of Ambos Nogales – U.S. Army forces skirmish with Mexican Carrancistas at Nogales, Arizona, in the only battle of World War I fought on U.S. soil.
- September 11 – The Boston Red Sox defeat the Chicago Cubs for the 1918 World Series championship, their last World Series win until 2004.
October–December
- October 4 – The T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion in New Jersey kills 100+, and destroys enough ammunition to supply the Western Front for 6 months.
- October 8 – World War I: In the Forest of Argonne in France, U.S. Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132.
- October 11 – The 7.1 Mw San Fermín earthquake shakes Puerto Rico with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (Violent), killing 76–116 people. A destructive tsunami contributed to the damage and loss of life.
- October 12 – 1918 Cloquet Fire: The city of Cloquet, Minnesota and nearby areas are destroyed in a fire, killing 453.
- October 25 – The SS Princess Sophia sinks on Vanderbilt Reef near Juneau, Alaska; 353 people die in the greatest maritime disaster in the Pacific Northwest.
- November 1 – Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in world history occurs under the intersection of Malbone Street and Flatbush Avenue, in Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 dead.
- November 11 – World War I ends.
- December 4 – President of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson sails for the Paris Peace Conference, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.
- December 19 – Ripley's Believe It or Not! first appears as a cartoon under the title Champs and Chumps in The New York Globe.
Undated
- The Native American Church is formally founded.
- The Association Against the Prohibition Amendment is founded to oppose Prohibition in the U.S.
- George Drumm's concert march "Hail, America" is first performed in New York City.
Ongoing
- Progressive Era (1890s–1920s)
- Lochner era (c. 1897–c. 1937)
- U.S. occupation of Haiti (1915–1934)
- World War I, U.S. involvement (1917–1918)
- First Red Scare (1917–1920)
Births
- January 16 – Stirling Silliphant, screenwriter and producer (died 1996)
- January 21 – Richard Winters, World War II soldier (died 2011)
- January 23 – Gertrude B. Elion, pharmacologist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1988 (died 1999)
- January 26 – Philip José Farmer, science fiction writer (died 2009)
- January 31 – Millie Dunn Veasey, World War II soldier (died 2018)
- February 8 – Walter Newton Read, lawyer and second chairman of the New Jersey Casino Control Commission (died 2001)
- February 17 – William Bronk, poet (died 1999)
- February 22 – Charlie Finley, businessman (died 1996)
- February 22 – Robert Wadlow, tallest man (died 1940)
- March 8 – Mendel L. Peterson, underwater archaeologist (died 2003)
- March 9 – Mickey Spillane, thriller writer (died 2006)
- March 12 – Elaine de Kooning, Abstract Expressionist painter (died 1989)
- March 15 – Richard Ellmann, literary biographer (died 1987)
- March 16 – Frederick Reines, physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1995 (died 1998)
- March 17 – Ross Bass, U.S. Senator from Tennessee from 1964 to 1967 (died 1993)
- April 4 – Joseph Ashbrook, astronomer (died 1980)
- April 8 – Betty Ford, First Lady of the United States, Second Lady of the United States (died 2011)
- April 15 – Louis O. Coxe, writer (died 1993)
- April 20 – Edward L. Beach Jr., naval captain and author (died 2002)
- May 10
- Jane Mayhall, poet and novelist (died 2009)
- George Welch, U.S. soldier and pilot (killed in aviation accident 1954)
- May 11
- Richard Feynman, physicist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 (died 1988)
- Phil Rasmussen, pilot (died 2005)
- May 21 – Lloyd Hartman Elliott, educator, president of George Washington University (died 2013)
- June 6 – Edwin G. Krebs, biochemist, winner of Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1992 (died 2009)
- June 18 – Lillian Ross, journalist on The New Yorker (died 2017)
- July 3 – Ben Thompson, architect and designer (died 2002)
- July 4
- Eppie Lederer, journalist and radio host (died 2002)
- Johnnie Parsons, race car driver (died 1984)
- Pauline Phillips, journalist and radio host, creator of Dear Abby (died 2013)
- July 14 – Arthur Laurents, novelist and screenwriter (died 2011)
- July 25 – Jane Frank, multimedia artist (died 1986)
- August 9 – Robert Aldrich, writer and filmmaker (died 1983)
- August 13 – Tao Porchon-Lynch, oldest yoga teacher and author
- August 19 – Oliver Brown, African American civil rights activist (died 1961)
- August 20 – Jacqueline Susann, novelist (died 1974)
- August 21 – Bruria Kaufman, physicist (died 2010 in Israel)
- August 25 – Leonard Bernstein, composer and conductor (died 1990)
- August 26 – Katherine Johnson, African American physicist and mathematician
- August 30 – Ted Williams, baseball hitter (died 2002)
- August 31 – Alan Jay Lerner, lyricist (died 1986)
- October 4 – Adrian Kantrowitz, cardiac surgeon (died 2008)
- October 23 – Paul Rudolph, architect (died 1997)
- November 3 – Russell B. Long, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1948 to 1987 (died 2003)
- November 7 – Billy Graham, evangelist (died 2018)
- November 9 – Spiro T. Agnew, 39th Vice President of the United States from 1969 to 1973 (died 1996)
- November 29 – Madeleine L'Engle, children's fiction writer (died 2007)
- December 4 – Albert Francis "Sonny" Capone, son of Al Capone (died 2004)
- December 14 – Jack Cole, cartoonist (died 1958)
- December 25 – Henry Hillman, businessman and philanthropist (died 2017)
Deaths
- January 8 – Ellis H. Roberts, politician (born 1827)
- February 2 – John L. Sullivan, boxer, World Heavyweight Champion (born 1858)
- February 15 – Vernon Castle, ballroom dancer (born 1887)
- March 10 – Jim McCormick, baseball pitcher (born 1856 in Scotland)
- March 14 – Lucretia Garfield, First Lady of the United States, (born 1832)
- March 16 – Prosper P. Parker, civil engineer, Union Army officer and politician (born 1835 in Canada)
- March 27 – Henry Adams, historian (born 1838)
- April 14 – James E. Ware, architect who devised the "dumbbell plan" for New York City tenements (born 1846)
- May 1 – G. K. Gilbert, geologist (born 1843)
- May 5 – Bertha Palmer, businesswoman, socialite and philanthropist (born 1849)
- May 14 – James Gordon Bennett, Jr., newspaper publisher (born 1841)
- May 17 – William Drew Robeson, African American Presbyterian minister, escaped slave and father of Paul Robeson (born 1844)
- May 19 – Raoul Lufbery, fighter pilot (killed in action; born 1885 in France)
- May 27 – Frederick Trump, German American businessman, paternal grandfather of Donald Trump (born 1869)
- June 4 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th Vice President of the United States from 1905 to 1909 and U.S. Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905 (born 1852)
- June 18 – Lizzie Halliday, serial killer (born c.1859)
- June 25 – Jake Beckley, baseball player (born 1867)
- June 27 – George Mary Searle, astronomer (born 1839)
- June 28 – Albert Henry Munsell, inventor of the Munsell color system (born 1858)
- July 20 – Francis Lupo, U.S. Army soldier (killed in action; born 1895)
- July 27 – Gustav Kobbé, music critic and author (sailing accident; born 1857)
- July 30 – Joyce Kilmer, poet (killed in action; born 1886)
- August 1 – John Riley Banister, policeman and cowboy (born 1854)
- August 10 – William Pitt Kellogg, U.S. Senator from Louisiana from 1868 to 1872 and from 1877 to 1883 (born 1830)
- August 12 – Anna Held, singer (born 1872 in Poland)
- August 14 – Anna Morton, Second Lady of the United States (born 1846)
- September 12 – Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1885 to 1897 and from 1901 to 1907 (born 1838)
- September 28
- True Boardman, silent film actor (born 1882)
- Freddie Stowers, African American corporal (killed in action; born 1896)
- September 29 – Frank Luke, fighter pilot (killed in action; born 1897)
- October 8 – James B. McCreary, 27th and 37th Governor of Kentucky from 1875 to 1879 and from 1911 to 1915, U.S. Senator from Kentucky from 1903 to 1909 (born 1838)
- October 16 – Felix Arndt, pianist and composer (born 1889)
- October 19 – Harold Lockwood, silent film actor (born 1887)
- October 22 – Myrtle Gonzalez, silent film actress (born 1891)
- November 4 – Andrew Dickson White, diplomat, academic and author (born 1832)
- November 19 – Joseph F. Smith, Mormon leader (born 1838)
- December 26 – William Hampton Patton, entomologist (born 1853)
See also
References
- ↑ House of Lords (U.K.), Science and Technology Committee (2005-12-16), Pandemic Influenza (PDF), London: The Stationery Office, archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-05-08, retrieved 2009-05-06
External links
- "1918". Timeline. Digital Public Library of America. Archived from the original on
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