1918 History, Fun Facts and Trivia

Firsts, Inventions, and Wonders: 
The Timberland Shoe Company was founded.

God Bless America was written by Irving Berlin.

Stars & Stripes, the weekly US armed forces newspaper, restarted publication. It was also published during the Civil War.

Opha Mae Johnson became the first woman allowed to join the US Marine Corps.

Pop Culture News: 
Executed labor leader and songwriter Joe Hill had his ashes seized by the US federal government on Oct 8, 1917. The ashes were held for 71 years as they were seen as subversive. Before he died, Hill asked to be cremated and specified that his ashes be scattered in every state except Utah.

The 1918 World Series marked the first time The Star-Spangled Banner was performed at a major league game. During the seventh-inning stretch of Game 1, the band began playing the song because the country was involved in World War I.

A 1918 calendar is also good for 2013, 2019, 2002, 1991, 1985, 1974, 1963, 1957, 1946, 1935 and 1929

The Sinking of the Lusitania was a cartoon short (longest at the time) by Windsor McCay…

Enrico Caruso, the legendary opera singer, was paid $100,000, the equivalent of $1.75 Million today, to star in My Cousin, a silent movie.

The United States Congress officially established time zones and approves with the Standard Time Act of March 19, 1918.

The Geographic Center of the United States was determined by balancing a cardboard cutout shape of the US on a point, near Lebanon, Kansas. It was accurate to within 20 miles.

In 1918, pink was for boys because it is a stronger color, and the more delicate blue was reserved for girls.

Ossip Bernstein, a famous chess grandmaster, was sentenced to death by the Bolsheviks in 1918. While he was facing the firing squad, a Russian officer that heard his name offered him the chance to prove his identity in a game of chess. He beat the officer and was released.

654 sheep were killed by forked lightning when it struck a mountain in Wasatch National park, Utah on July 18, 1918.

Over 100 waiters were arrested for poisoning bad tippers in Chicago. The Mickey Finn is most likely named after Michael “Mickey” Finn, the manager of the Lone Star Saloon and Palm Garden Restaurant, which operated from 1896 to 1903 in the Chicago Loop neighborhood on South State Street of Chicago. “Slipping someone a ‘Mickey’ was named after this assault.

In Russia, the day after January 31st was February 14th, not February 1st – that’s the day Russia transitioned from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar.

The Re-Gift:
In 1915 Cecil Chubb bought Stonehenge as a gift for his wife. She didn’t like it so he donated it to the nation in 1918.

H1N1 – Spanish Flu:
The Spanish Flu: This was during World War I (also called The Great War) and many countries had limits on what the press could write about, except Spain, who was neutral. Thus, more reports came out about the flu from Spain causing people to think it was primarily happening there.

The 1918 Spanish Flu killed so many people in the US that it caused the average life expectancy in males to drop from 48.4 to 36.6 and 54.0 to 42.2 in females between the years of 1917 to 1918.

WWI News:
When Manfred von Richtofen (the Red Baron) was shot down and killed in 1918, the British Army gave him a full military funeral, complete with clergy, a gun salute and a wreath inscribed with, “To Our Gallant and Worthy Foe.”

A carrier pigeon named Cher Ami saved 194 American soldiers by delivering a message to nearby support despite having been blinded in one eye, shot through the breast, covered in blood, and with a leg hanging on by just a tendon.

The phrase “The First World War” was used as early as 1918, by Niall Ferguson, who felt it would not be the last.

There is only a single known audio recording from WWI. It involves British troops firing gas shells at German positions during their advance on Lille, France, on October 9, 1918.

There is a monument to honor the almost one million Allied horses who died during the First World War in Ascot, near Windsor Castle, UK. Of one million drafted horses only 62,000 returned 1918.

The USS Cyclops disappeared along with 306 crew and passengers in The Bermuda Triangle. No trace has ever been found and it remains the single largest non-combat loss of life in US Naval history.

Private John Parr was the first British soldier to die in World War 1. Almost a million more Brits died, and the last was Private George Edwin Ellison, just before the Armistice ending the war was signed in 1918. In an unplanned coincidence, the graves face each other just 15ft apart at the same cemetery.

Veterans Day originated as Armistice Day, marking the end of WW1 hostilities which occurred in 1918 in the 11th month, on the 11th day, at the 11th hour.

After the Treaty of Versailles (end of WW I) the French Commander-in-chief said “This is not a Peace. It is an Armistice for 20 years”. 20 years and 65 days later, WW II began.

The Disasters:
On February 26, 1918, one of the worst sports-related disasters occurred when the “Happy Valley Racecourse” grandstands in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, caught fire. Over 600 spectators were burned alive and 300 more were injured.

The steamer Princess Sophia sank on Vanderbilt Reef near Juneau, Alaska, and 353 people died.

The Great Train Wreck of 1918: in Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collided with an outbound express, killing 101 people.

Popular and Notable Books From 1918: