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 Funston, 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 San Jacinto earthquake shakes 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 22 – The small town of Codell, Kansas is hit for the fifth year in a row by a tornado. Coincidentally, all three tornadoes hit on the same date. May 23 – First victims of the "axeman of New Orleans" in a 17-month series of brutal murders mainly directed at Italian American shopkeepers and their families; the serial killer is never identified. June 8 – The total solar eclipse of June 8, 1918 crosses 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. Hammond Circus Train Wreck: A locomotive engineer fell asleep and ran his troop train into the rear of a circus train near Hammond, Indiana. The circus train held 400 performers and roustabouts of the Hagenbeck-Wallace Circus.
July–September
July 9 – Great Train Wreck of 1918: In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101 and injuring 171. It is considered the worst rail accident in U.S. history. August – A deadly second wave of the Spanish flu starts in France, Sierra Leone and the United States. 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. September 12–15 – World War I: Battle of Saint-Mihiel fought in France: The first and only offensive launched solely by the American Expeditionary Forces under John J. Pershing overcomes German forces in the Saint-Mihiel salient.
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 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 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.