1918 in the United States

1918 in the United States
Years:	1915 1916 1917 – 1918 – 1919 1920 1921
Flag
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 (D-New Jersey)
• Vice President: Thomas R. Marshall (D-Indiana)
• Chief Justice: Edward Douglass White (originally from Louisiana)
• Speaker of the House of Representatives: Champ Clark (D-Missouri)
• Congress: 65th

Governors and Lieutenant Governors
Governors 2 Lieutenant Governors 2

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.), the male "Incas", dies at the 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

• 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.
• 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 oppose Prohibition in the U.S.

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
  • Philip José Farmer, science fiction writer (died 2009)
  • 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)
• February 17 – William Bronk, poet (died 1999)
• February 22 – Charlie Finley, businessman (died 1996)
• 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 15 – Louis O. Coxe, writer (died 1993)
• 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)
• 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 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 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
• 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)

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 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)
• 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)
• 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)

External links

• Media related to at Wikimedia Commons