1918 in the United States

1918 in the United States
Years:	1915 1916 1917 – 1918 – 1919 1920 1921
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48 stars (1912–59)
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 (Democratic)
• Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall (Democratic)
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-Missouri)
• Congress: 65th

Events

January–March

• January 8 – Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech.
• 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

• 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 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

1918 flu pandemic

• 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]
• 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 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 city of Mayagüez, Puerto Rico and other adjacent towns are nearly destroyed by an 7.5 earthquake and a tsunami.
• 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.
• 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 stop Prohibition in the U.S.
• The last captive Carolina Parakeet (the last breed of parrot native to North America) dies at the Cincinnati Zoo .
• The World Tomorrow pacifist magazine begins publication.

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 21 – Richard Winters, World War II soldier (died 2011)
• March 17 – Ross Bass, United States Senator from Tennessee from 1964 till 1967. (died 1993)
• May 21 – Lloyd Hartman Elliott, educator and former president of George Washington University (died 2013)
• August 21 – Bruria Kaufman, American-born Israeli physicist (died 2010)
• November 3 – Russell B. Long, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1948 till 1987. (died 2003)
• November 7 – Rev. Billy Graham, "America's pastor."
• December 4 – Albert Francis Capone, son of Al Capone (died 2004)

Deaths

• April 14 – James E. Ware, architect who devised the "dumbbell plan" for New York City tenements (born 1846)
• June 4 – Charles W. Fairbanks, 26th Vice President of the United States from 1905 till 1909 and United States Senator from Indiana from 1897 to 1905. (born 1852)
• August 10 – William Pitt Kellogg, United States Senator from Louisiana from 1868 till 1872 and from 1877 till 1883. (born 1830)
• September 12 – Joseph Clay Stiles Blackburn, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1885 till 1897 and from 1901 till 1907. (born 1838)
• October 8 – James B. McCreary, 27th and 37th Governor of Kentucky from 1875 till 1879 and from 1911 till 1915, United States Senator from Kentucky from 1903 till 1909. (born 1838)

References

External links

• Media related to 1918 in the United States at Wikimedia Commons
• "1918". Timeline. Digital Public Library of America.