What Was Happening in 1918?

I have to be honest: I am not a history buff. I am never sure when things happened in history: wars, assassinations, laws passed, you name it and I am unsure when it happened. This new project that I've taken on for myself will hopefully help change that. Now that I'm older, maybe I'll retain more information than I used to. We'll see.

The first book that we will be looking at is obviously the very first Pulitzer Prize winning book ever. It is called "His Family" by Ernest Poole and it was awarded the prize in the year 1918.

This was a huge year for much of Europe, and many amazing things happened. Russia moved their capital from Petrograd to Moscow and also declared separation of church and state. Also, in Russia, the Bolshevik party became the Communist party and severed all diplomatic ties with the United States.

But for this year and this book I really wanted to focus on what happened in the United States during this year. Of course, the US was involved in WWI and many big things happened with the war during this year. Herbert Hoover was the president of the United States and as a result of the war he called for "wheatless and meatless" days to help with the war effort. In June of this year the very first airplane bombing raid by an American took place. It's amazing that it just happened in 1918, but I guess that was 92 years ago.

On a lighter note, here are some interesting facts that happened during 1918. A couple of laws with a HUGE impact on our lives were passed. In January, Mississippi became the first state to ratify the 18th amendment, don't worry I didn't know which one it was either; it was prohibition. On May 21st the House of Representatives passed an amendment that would allow women to vote. Just 92 years ago, ladies. Also, daylight savings time went into effect this year. Oh, and the first airmail stamp was issued in May of 1918.

There were some tragic events that took place this year. There was a Spanish Flu epidemic that hit the US. The first case happened in March and became a worldwide pandemic. In October, 21,000 people died in one week in the United States and by November it had spread to Western Samoa killing 7,542 people by the end of the year. After being warned of a flu pandemic ourselves this past year, this really hit home to me. Also in NYC (where this book takes place) the worst subway accident happened killing 97 people.

And here are a couple of random animal tragedies to end on. In July, lightning killed 504 sheep in Utah's Wasatch National Forest and I have to put this in, because I'm a birdwatcher, but in February the last captive Caroline Parakeet (the last breed of parrot native to North America) died at the Cincinnati Zoo.

Sources: Wikipedia.com, hisdates.com, and historyorb.com