- January 25
- Russia is declared a republic of Soviets. [1]
- January 26
- US food administrator Herbert Hoover calls for "wheatless" and "meatless" days for war effort. [1]
- January 27
- Tarzan of the Apes, first Tarzan film, premieres at Broadway Theater in New York. [1]
- January 28
- Strike on Berlin ammunitions factory. [1]
- Leon Trotsky becomes leader of Reds. [1]
- January 31
- Last day of Old Style calendar in Russia, as it adopts Gregorian calendar; next day is February 14. [66.54] [983.25]
- February 1
- Last day of Gregorian calendar in Estonia. Next day is February 15. [983.24]
- February 3
- Twin Peaks Tunnel, longest (11,920 feet) streetcar tunnel, begins service. [1]
- February 5
- Stephen W Thompson becomes first US pilot to down an enemy airplane. [1]
- Separation of church and state begins in Russia. [1]
vvv advertisement vvv
^^^ advertisement ^^^
- February 6
- Britain grants women (30 and over) the vote. [1]
- February 14
- Soviet Russia adopts New Style (Gregorian) calendar. [1] [983.25]
- February 15
- US army troop ship torpedoed and sunk by Germany, off Ireland. [1]
- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania adopt the Gregorian calendar. [1] [983.24]
- February 16
- Lithuania declares independence from Russia and Germany (National Day). [1]
- February 21
- Australians chase Turkish troops out of Jericho, Dutch Palestine. [1]
- February 22
- Germany claims Baltic states, Finland and Ukraine from Russia. [1]
- February 24
- Estonia declares independence from Russia. [1]
- February 26
- Stands at Hong Kong Jockey Club collapse and burn, killing 604. [1] [187.219]
- March 3
- Russia withdraws from war, signs Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany and Austria. [1]
- March 4
- At Fort Riley, Kansas, USA, US Private Albert Gitchell is the first case of a new strain of influenza. (By the end of 1920, 500 million people will contract the flu, and 100 million will die.) [1396.16]
- Terek Autonomous Republic established in RSFSR (until 1921). [1]
- March 6
- US naval collier Cyclops disappears in Bermuda Triangle. [1]
- March 9
- Russian Bolshevik Party becomes the Communist Party. [1]
- Ukrainian mobs massacre Jews of Seredino Buda. [1]
- March 11
- Moscow becomes capital of revolutionary Russia. [1]
- March 13
- American Red Magen David (Jewish Red Cross) forms. [1]
- March 14
- First concrete ship to cross the Atlantic (Faith) is launched, in San Francisco, California. [1]
- March 18
- Socialist Youth AJC organizes in Amsterdam. [1]
- March 19
- US Congress authorizes time zones and approves daylight saving time. [1] [5]
- S Potter becomes first US pilot to shoot down a German seaplane. [1]
- March 21
- Germany launches the Somme offensive. [1]
- March 23
- Crépy-en-Laonnoise: German artillery shells Paris, France, 256 killed. [1]
- Lithuania proclaims independence. [1]
- France bombs "Thick Bertha's Dike" (nickname for the widow Krupp). [1]
- April 1
- England's Royal Flying Corps replaced by Royal Air Force. [1]
- April 4
- Battle of Somme ends. [1]
- Food riot in Amsterdam. [1]
- April 9
- Latvia proclaims independence from Russia. [1]
- April 13
- Electrical fire kills 38 mental patients at Oklahoma State Hospital. [1]
- April 15
- French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau publishes secret French/Austrian documents. [1]
- April 21
- Manfred von Richtofen, the "Red Baron", is shot down at age 25. [1]
- April 23
- Battle of Zeebrugge ends. [1]
- April 24
- The first tank-to-tank combat occurs at Villers-Bretonneux, France, when three British Mark IVs meet three German A7Vs. [5]
- May 2
- General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware. [5]
- May 10
- HMS Vindictive sunk to block entrance of Ostend Harbor. [1]
- May 15
- Greek troops lands at Smyrna. [1]
- Hostilities cease in the Finish Civil War. About 37,000 Finns died. [1000.26]
- May 18
- Netherlands Indian Volksraad installed in Batavia. [1]
- TNT explosion in chemical factory in Oakdale, Pennsylvania, USA kills 200. [1]
- May 20
- The US launches the first electrically-propelled warship (the New Mexico). [1]
- May 21
- US House of Representatives passes amendment allowing women to vote. [1]
- May 23
- King Oil/Shell refinery on Curaçao officially opens. [1]
- May 26
- Georgian Social Democratic Republic declares independence from Russia. [1]
- May 28
- Tatars declare Azerbaijan, in Russian Caucasus, independent. [1]
- June 6
- Battle of Belleau Wood, first US victory of the Great War. [1]
- June 22
- Circus train rammed by troop train kills 68 (Ivanhoe, Illinois, USA). [1]
- A circus train wreck kills 86 and injures 127 near Hammond, Indiana, USA. [5]
- June 27
- German submarine U-84 torpedoes and sinks Union Castle Line's passenger liner Llandovery Castle en route from Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, to Liverpool, England. The ship was serving as a hospital ship for Canadian forces. [152.18]
- June 28
- First flight between Hawaiian Islands. [1]
- June 30
- In Richardton, North Dakota, USA, a chondrite meteorite falls striking a building. (It is later found to have sufficient isotope xenon-129 to indicate origin in a supernova before birth of Solar System, 4560 million years ago.) [521] [523.122]
- July 4
- Altar is dedicated at full-scale replica of Stonehenge at Maryhill, Washington, USA. [1]
- July 9
- 101 killed and 171 injured in worst US train wreck, in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. [1]
- July 10
- Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic is established. [1]
- July 15
- Second Battle of Marne begins. [1]
- July 16
- Russian tsar Nicholas II, his tsarina and their five children are executed. [1]
- July 18
- US and French forces launch Aisne-Marne offensive. [1]
- July 19
- German armies retreat across Marne River in France. [1]
- 60 miles east of New York City, USA, the USS San Diego ship has an explosion of unknown cause, sinking the ship in under 30 minutes. 1176 sailors abandon ship, 6 die. [1371.41]
- July 21
- Near Orleans, Massachusetts, USA, German submarine U-156 fires over 100 shells on tugboat Perth Amboy and the barges it is towing, sinking the barges and badly damaging the tug. All 32 people on the tug and barges are rescued. Efforts to sink the submarine fail. [1371.40]
- July 22
- Lightning kills 504 sheep in Utah's Wasatch National Park. [1]
- July 25
- Race riot in Chester, Pennsylvania, USA (three blacks and two whites killed). [1]
- July 26
- Race riot in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA (three whites and one black killed). [1]
- July 27
- Socony 200, first concrete barge in US, launched to carry oil, in New York. [1]
- August 8
- Six US soldiers are surrounded by Germans in France, Alvin York is given command and shoots 20 Germans and captures 132 more. [1]
- August 11
- Battle of Amiens ends, Allies beat Germans. [1]
- August 13
- Bayerische Motoren Werke AG (BMW) is established as a public company in Germany. [5]
- August 15
- Jewell Productions releases The Sinking of the Lusitania animated film in the USA, first full-length feature cartoon. Winsor McCoy created the film in 22 months using 25,000 drawings. [1] [55.65]
- US and Russia sever diplomatic ties. [1]
- August 20
- Britain opens offensive on Western front during Great War. [1]
- August 27
- Dr Joseph L Johnson named minister to Liberia. [1]
- September 1
- US troops land in Vladivostok, Siberia. [1]
- September 4
- US troops land in Archangel, Russia. [1]
- September 12
- US forces launch an attack on German-occupied Saint Mihiel. [1]
- September 26
- Meuse-Argonne offensive against Germany. [1]
- September 29
- Allied forces score a decisive breakthrough of the Hindenburg Line. [1]
- October 3
- Boris becomes king of Bulgaria. [1]
- October 8
- Sargeant Alvin York single-handedly kills 25, captures 132 Germans. [1]
- October 12
- First use of iron lung (Boston's Children Hospital). [1]
- Cloquet, Minnesota, USA and 25 other communities destroyed by forest fire, 559 die. [1]
- October 17
- First use of American Code Talkers in World War I, by members of the Choctaq tribe in radio communications. [397.73]
- October 25
- Canadian steamship Princess Sophia hits a reef off Alaska, 398 die. [1]
- October 28
- Czechoslovakia declares independence. [1] [371.88]
- October 30
- Slovakia asks for creation of Czechoslovakian state. [1]
- Fiume declares independence from Hungary. [1146.712]
- October 31
- Count Stephen Tisza, Hungarian Prime Minister, is assassinated by soldiers. [1]
- First manned torpedo is deployed to set detachable mines to Austro-Hungarian battleship Viribus Unitis, in Adriatic port of Pola. [1839.20]
- Hungarian National Council takes power in popular revolt in Hungary. [1146.710]
- November 1
- 97 die in New York City subway's worst accident. [1]
- November 3
- Austrians surrender to Allies; Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolves. [1] [1146.711]
- At Kiel naval base, German sailors mutiny and refuse to put to sea to go to battle. [1433.8]
- November 7
- Goddard demonstrates tube-launched solid propellant rocket. [1]
- United Press reports (erroneously) Great War armistice has been signed. [1]
- November 8
- American forces remove Germans from Bois des Caures, France. [1395.61]
- November 9
- Bavaria proclaims itself a republic. [1]
- Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates after German defeat in war. [1]
- The German monarch is discarded by the majority Socialists; Philipp Scheidemann proclaims the German Republic. [474.40] [1433.8]
- November 10
- British and Indian force Indian Expeditionary Force "D" takes control of Mosul (Iraq). [1215.809]
- November 11
- (0500 hours) Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiegne, France. [129]
- (1100 hours) The Great War ends, after Germany, the last of the Central Powers, surrenders to the Allies. [1] [129]
- Poland proclaims independence from Russia. [1]
- November 12
- Emperor Karl of Austria-Hungary abdicates, Austria becomes a republic. [1] [1098.926]
- November 13
- Count Michael Károlyi of Hungary signs armistice. [1146.711]
- November 14
- Republic of Czechoslovakia created with T.G. Masaryk as President. [1]
- November 16
- Serbs make Temesvár their military headquarters in occupied Bánát, Hungary. [1146.714]
- Hungarian People's Republic is declared. [1] [1146.710]
- November 18
- Latvia declares independence from Russia. [1]
- November 24
- Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes is formed. [1146.711]
- December 1
- Danish parliament passes an act to grant Iceland independence. [1]
- Romanian troops cross armistice line into Transylvania of Hungary, and the Romanians of Transylvania proclaim their union with Romania. [1146.712]
- Regent Alexander accepts delegation of the People's Council, declares the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. [278.1076] [1268.85]
- December 4
- U.S. President Woodrow Wilson sails to the peace talks in Versailles, France, becoming the first U.S. president to travel to Europe while in office. [1] [5]
- December 5
- Oil refinery on Curaçao opens. [1]
- December 9
- French troops occupy Mainz, Germany. [1]
- December 13
- US army of occupation crosses the Rhine, enters Germany. [1]
- December 14
- Sidonio Pais, prince of Portugal, is murdered. [1]
|