1918
Centuries:
19th century -
20th century -
21st century
Decades: 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s - 1910s - 1920s 1930s 1940s 1950s 1960s
Years: 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 - 1918 - 1919 1920 1921 1922 1923
- Finnish Civil War between the Reds and the Whites, January - April.
- Habsburg Empire ceases to exist
- Grand Duchy of Baden ceases to exist
- Iceland becomes an independent state, under the Danish crown, with foreign affairs handled by Denmark.
- January 8 - President Woodrow Wilson announces his "Fourteen Points" for the aftermath of World War I
- February 3 - The Twin Peaks Tunnel begins service as the longest streetcar tunnel in the world (11,920 feet long).
- February 1 - Russia adopts the Gregorian Calendar
- February 8 - The Stars and Stripes newspaper publishes for the first time
- February 14 - The Soviet Union adopts the Gregorian calendar (1 February according to the Julian calendar). As a consequence the anniversary of the Russian Revolution, previously October, now falls in November.
- February 16 - Lithuania declares its independence from both Russia and Germany
- March 3 - Germany, Austria and Bolshevist Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ending Russia's involvement in World War I.
- March 5 - The Soviet Union moves the national capital from Petrograd to Moscow
- March 6 - Finnish Airforce 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 19 - The United States Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time (DST went into effect on March 31).
- March 21 - World War I: Second Battle of the Somme begins
- April 1 - The Royal Flying Corps is replaced by the Royal Air Force.
- May 15 - The Post Office Department (later renamed the USPS) begins the first regular airmail service in the world (between New York City, Philadelphia and Washington, DC).
- May 26 - The Democratic Republic of Georgia is established.
- July 4 - Change of emperor of the Ottoman Empire from Mehmed V (Resad) (1909-1918) to Mehmed VI (Vahdettin) (1918-1922)
- July 9 - Great Train Wreck of 1918: In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express killing 101.
- July 15 - World War I: Second Battle of the Marne - The battle begins near the River Marne with a German attack.
- July 16 - Russian Revolution: At Ekaterinburg, Bolsheviks execute Czar Nicholas II of Russia and his family.
- August - "Spanish Flu" Influenza becomes pandemic; over twenty-five million people die in the following six months (three times as many as died during the war).
- August 8 - World War I: Battle of Amiens - Canadian troops, backed by Australians, begin a string of almost continuous victories with a push through the German front lines. German General Erich Ludendorff will later call this the "black day of the German army."
- October 8 - World War I - In the Argonne Forest in France, United States Corporal Alvin C. York almost single-handedly kills 25 German soldiers and captures 132.
- October 28 - Czechoslovakia gains its independence from Austria-Hungary
- October 28 - New Polish government in Western Galicia (Eastern Europe)
- November 3 - World War I: Austria-Hungary enters an armistice with the Allies.
- November 3 - Poland declares its independence from Russia.
- November 6 - A new Polish government is proclaimed in Lublin.
- November 9 - Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates and chooses to live in exile in the Netherlands.
- November 9 - Provisional National Council Minister-President Kurt Eisner declares Bavaria to be a republic.
- November 11 - World War I ends: Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compi�gne in France.
- November 11 - Polands Jozef Pilsudski is offered a position of head of state by all existing governments. Independence Day.
- November 11 - Emperor Charles I of Austria abdicates.
- November 12 - Austria becomes a republic.
- November 14 - Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
- November 18 - Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
- December 1 - Iceland becomes a self-governing kingdom, yet remains united with Denmark.
- December 1 - New voting laws in Sweden. Votes no longer dependent on taxable assets. One person, one vote.
- December 1 - Following the March 27 incorporation of Bessarabia and Bucovina, Transylvania unites with Romania.
- December 1 - The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later known as the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) is proclaimed.
- December 4 - Wilson sails for the Paris Peace Conference
- December 4 - US President Woodrow Wilson sails for Versailles for the World War I peace talks, becoming the first US president to travel to Europe while in office.
Year in topic
Births
- January 15 - Gamal Abdal Nasser, President of Egypt (d. 1970)
- January 15 - Robert Byrd, American politician
- January 16 - Stirling Silliphant, writer, producer (d. 1996)
- January 20 - Esquivel, musician
- January 26 - Nicolae Ceausescu, Romanian dictator (d. 1989)
- January 26 - Philip Jose Farmer, science fiction writer
- January 27 - Skitch Henderson, musician, band leader
- January 29 - John Forsythe, actor
- February 1 - Dame Muriel Spark, author
- February 6 - Lothar-G�nther Buchheim, author of Das Boot
- February 8 - Fred Blassie, former professional wrestler (d. 2003)
- February 25 - Bobby Riggs, tennis player (d. 1995)
- February 26 - Theodore Sturgeon, science fiction writer (d. 1985)
- March 3 - Fritz Thiedemann, equestrian (d. 2000)
- March 5 - James Tobin, economist
- March 9 - Mickey Spillane, mystery writer
- March 9 - George Lincoln Rockwell, American Nazi leader (d. 1967)
- March 10 - Heywood Hale Broun, sports journalist, commentator (d. 2001)
- March 16 - Frederick Reines, physicist (1995 Nobel Prize in Physics)
- March 17 - Mercedes McCambridge, actress
- March 25 - Howard Cosell, attorney, lecturer, sports journalist (d. 1995)
- March 29 - Pearl Bailey, singer, actress (d. 1990)
- April 16 - Spike Milligan, comedian
- April 25 - Ella Fitzgerald, jazz singer (d. 1996)
- May 9 - Mike Wallace, journalist
- May 9 - Orville L. Freeman, American politician (d. 2003)
- May 11 - Richard Feynman, physicist (d. 1988)
- May 12 - Julius Rosenberg, spy (d. [1953]])
- May 15 - Eddy Arnold, singer
- June 18 - Franco Modigliani, economist
- July 4 - Ann Landers, advice columnist (d. 2002)
- July 4 - Abigail Van Buren, advice columnist and twin sister to Ann Landers
- July 13 - Alberto Ascari, Italian F1 race car driver (d. 1955)
- July 14 - Ingmar Bergman Swedish film director
- July 15 - Bertram N. Brockhouse, Canadian scientist
- July 18 - Nelson Mandela, South African prisoner of conscience and president
- August 8 - Brian Stonehouse, painter, SOE agent in WW II (+ 1998)
- August 13 - Frederick Sanger, molecular biologist
- August 25 - Leonard Bernstein, American composer and conductor
- August 30 - Ted Williams, American baseball player († 2002)
- September 22 - Henryk Szeryng, violinist (d. 1988)
- October 19 - Louis Althusser, French Marxist philosopher
- September 4 - Paul Harvey Legendary American radio broadcaster
- December 11 - Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Russian writer
- December 21 - Donald Regan, Chief of Staff and U.S. Treasury Secretary (d. 2003)
- December 25 - Anwar Sadat, Egyptian president
Deaths
- January 6 - Georg Cantor, German mathematician
- January 28 - John McCrae, Canadian soldier, poet
- February 6 - Gustav Klimt, Austrian painter
- March 25 - Claude Debussy, French composer
- March 27 - Henry Adams, american historian
- May 14 - James Gordon Bennett, Jr, newspaper publisher
- July 3 - Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire
- June 10 - Arrigo Boito, poet and composer
- July 17 - Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and his family
- August 18 - Henry Norwest, one of the most famous snipers of World War I
- September 28 - Georg Simmel, German sociologist and philosopher
Nobel Prizes