The year of 1918 (MCMXVIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar.
January
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 14: Russia switches from the Julian calendar to the Gregorian calendar.
February 16 – The Council of Lithuania adopts the Act of Independence of Lithuania, declaring Lithuania's independence from the Russian Empire.
February 24 – After seven centuries of foreign rule, Estonia declares its independence from the Russian Empire. Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia also declare their
independence from the Russian Empire.
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: Some time after March 4th the Cyclops, a fuel ship of the US Navy disappears after leaving Barbados for Hampton Roads, Va.
USA. (Books635)
March 4: A soldier at Camp Fuston, Kansas falls sick with the first confirmed case of the Spanish flu.
March 6: Black rain fell over Ireland. (Books818)
March 9: Dust, in great volumes fell upon Wisconsin, Michigan and Vermont, all USA. (Books818)
March 19: The U.S. Congress establishes time zones and approves daylight saving time (DST goes into effect on March 31).
March 23: The giant German cannon, the so-called Paris Gun, begins to shell Paris from 114 km (75 miles) away.
March 23: 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.
March 25: Belarus declares independence.
April
April 1: The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service are merged to form the Royal Air Force.
May
May 11: The Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus is officially established.
May 15: End of the Finnish Civil War.
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
June 1: World War I. The Battle for Belleau Wood begins.
June 12: Grand Duke Michael Romanov is murdered; becoming the first of the Romanov's to be murdered by the Bolsheviks.
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 (drugs).
July
July 4: Mehmed VI (1918-1922) succeeds Mehmed V (Resad) (1909-1918) as Ottoman Emperor.
July 9: Great train wreck of 1918: In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101.
July 12: , The Japanese Imperial Navy battle ship Kawachi blows up at Shunan, western Honshu, Japan killing at least 621.
July 17: By order of the Bolshevik Party and carried out by the Cheka, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, his immediate family, and retainers are executed at the Ipatiev
House in Ekaterinburg, Russia.
July 17: The RMS Carpathia, rescue ship of the RMS Titanic, is sunk off the coast of Ireland by the German submarine U-55, with 5 lives lost.
August
The Spanish Flu (influenza) becomes pandemic; over 25 million people die in the following 6 months (almost twice as many as died during the war).
August 1: British anti-Bolshevik forces occupy Archangel, Russia.
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 later calls this the "black day of the German Army."
August 10: Russian Revolution: The British commander in Archangel is told to help the White Russians.
August 24: At Hindon, England, hundreds of small fishes identified as sand eels fell. (Books88)
August 30: Russian Revolution: Vladmir Lenin is shot by Fanya Kaplan, but he survives. Moisei Uritsky, the Petrograd head of the Cheka, is assassinated the same
day.
September
British armies and their Arab allies roll into Syria.
September 29: Bulgaria requests an armistice in World War I.
October
October 4: William II of Germany forms a new more liberal government to sue for peace.
October 8: World War I: In the Argonne Forest 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: The city of Cloquet, Minnesota and nearby areas are destroyed in a fire, killing 453.
October 25: The Princess Sophia sinks on Vanderbilt Reef near Juneau, Alaska; 353 people die.
October 28: Czechoslovakia declares its independence from Austria-Hungary.
October 30 - The Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen is granted independence from the Ottoman Empire by the Armistice of Mudros.
October 31: The Hungarian government terminates the personal union with Austria, officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian empire.
November
November 1: Malbone Street Wreck: The worst rapid transit accident in world history occurs under the intersection of Malbone November 1 - Street and Flatbush Avenue,
in Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 dead.
November 1: Ruthenia in eastern Czechoslovakia declares a brief independence.
November 3: World War I. Austria-Hungary enters an armistice with the Allies.
November 3: Poland declares its independence from Russia.
November 4: A mutiny in the German fleet at Kiel begin the German Revolution. Four days later the German army withdraws its support of the Kaiser.
November 9: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany abdicates and chooses to live in exile in the Netherlands.
November 11: World War I ends, Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne in France.
November 12: Austria becomes a republic.
November 14: Czechoslovakia becomes a republic.
November 16: Hungary declares independence from Austria.
November 18: Latvia declares its independence from Russia.
November 22: The Spartacist League founds the German Communist Party.
November 28: Estonian Freedom War. Bolshevist Russia invades Estonia, beginning the war.
December
December 1:Iceland becomes a self-governing kingdom, yet remains in personal union with the King of Denmark who also becomes King of Iceland.
December 1: The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes is proclaimed.
December 4: U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails for the Paris Peace Conference, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office.
December 17: Culmination of the Darwin Rebellion as some 1000 demonstrators marched on Government House in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia.
December 27: Great Poland Uprising: The Poles in Greater Poland (or Grand Duchy of Poznań) rise up against the Germans.
December 28: Constance Markiewicz becomes the first woman elected to the British House of Commons.