1918

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1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar (or a common year starting on Monday[1] of the 13-day-slower Julian calendar).

Events of 1918

January

• January 8 – Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech.
• January 12 – Finland enacts a "Mosaic Confessors" law, granting Finnish Jews civil rights.
• January 18 – Constituent Assembly meet in Russia.
• January 25 – The Ukrainian people declare independence from Bolshevik Russia.
• January 27 – The Finnish Civil War begins.

February

February 5: The SS Tuscania (1914) is torpedoed off the Irish coast, it is the first ship carrying American troops to Europe to be torpedoed and sunk.

• February 14 – Russia switches from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar; the date skips from February 1 to February 14.
• February 16 – The Council of Lithuania adopts the Act of Independence of Lithuania, declaring Lithuania's independence from the Russian Empire.
• February 21 - The last captive Carolina Parakeet (the last breed of parrot native to North America) dies at the Cincinnati Zoo.
• February 24 – After 7 centuries of foreign rule, Estonia declares its independence from the Russian Empire. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia also declare their independence from the Russian Empire but as the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic.

March

• March 1 – The German submarine U-19 sinks the HMS Calgarian off Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland.
• March 3 – World War I: Germany, Austria and Bolshevist Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war.
• March 4 – A soldier at Camp Fuston, Kansas falls sick with the first confirmed case of the Spanish flu.
• March 5 – Soviet Russia moves its national capital from Petrograd to Moscow.
• March 6 – The Finnish Air Force is founded. The blue swastika is adopted as its symbol as a tribute to the Swedish explorer and aviator Eric von Rosen, who donated the first plane. Von Rosen had painted the Buddhist symbol on the plane as his personal lucky insignia.
• March 7 – World War I: Finland forms an alliance with Germany.
• March 12 – Moscow becomes the capital of Soviet Russia.
• March 19 – The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time (DST goes into effect on March 31).
• March 21 – World War I: The Second Battle of the Somme begins.
• March 23
  • The giant German cannon, the so-called Paris Gun, begins to shell Paris from 114 km (75 miles) away.
  • In London at the Wood Green Empire, Chung Ling Soo (William E Robinson, U.S.-born magician) dies during his trick where he is supposed to "catch" 2 separate bullets – one of them perforates his lung. He dies the following morning in a hospital.
  • The Social Revolutionary Party declares Belarus independent; Bolshevik armies soon crush them.
• March 25
  • Belarus declares independence.
  • Dr. Karl Muck, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is arrested under the Alien Enemies Act and imprisoned for the duration of World War I.
• March 27 – Bessarabia votes to become part of Romania.
• March 30 – Outburst of bloody March Events in Baku and other locations of Baku Governorate.

April

• April 1 – The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service are merged to form the Royal Air Force.
• April 21 – Manfred Von Richthofen, aka "The Red Baron", World war one's most successful fighter pilot, dies in combat at Morlancourt Ridge near the Somme River.

May

• May 1 – German troops enter Don province; they take Rostov May 6.
• May 2 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
• May 11 – The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is officially established.
• 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).
  • End of the Finnish Civil War.
• 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.
• May 21 – Army Aviation Section separated from Signal Corps and divided into the Division of Military Aeronautics and the Bureau of Aircraft Production.
• May 26 – The Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic is abolished. Georgia declares its independence as the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
• May 27 – The Third Battle of the Aisne commences.
• May 28 – Armenia and Azerbaijan declare their independence as the Democratic Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic respectively.

June