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Top Song(s)
• Al Jolson - Rock-A-Bye Your Baby (With a Dixie Melody)
• Charles Harrison - I'm Always Chasing Rainbows
• Arthur Fields - Oh! How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning
• Enrico Caruso - Over There
• Nora Bayes - Regretful Blues
Top Film(s)
• A Dog's Life
• Shoulder Arms
• The Blue Bird
• A Trip to Mars
• The Sinking of the Lusitania
Best Selling Book(s)
• Eminent Victorians - Lytton Strachey
• The Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
• The Tin Woodman of Oz - L. Frank Baum
• The Education of Henry Adams - Henry Adams
• The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
Famous Deaths
• January 2 – Katharine A. O'Keeffe O'Mahoney, Irish-born American teacher and writer.
• February 2 – John L. Sullivan, American boxer, World Heavyweight Champion.
• March 14 - Lucretia Garfield, First Lady of the United States.
• April 21 - Manfred von Richthofen, German fighter pilot, top-scoring ace of World War I.
• June 3 – Count Richard von Bienerth-Schmerling, Austrian noble, statesman and former Prime Minister.
• June 26 – Kyrion II of Georgia, Georgian Orthodox patriarch, Saint.
• August 5 – Peter Strasser, German naval officer, airship commander.
• September 2 – Sir John Forrest, Australian explorer and politician, 1st Premier of Western Australia.
• October 15 – Sai Baba of Shirdi, Indian guru, yogi and National saint of India.
• November 4 - Andrew Dickson White, American academic and diplomat, co-founder of Cornell University.
Medical/Science/Technology
• Nova Aquila, the brightest observed since 1604, is discovered.
• Kiyotsugu Hirayama identifies several groups of main belt asteroids, now known as Hirayama families.
• Arthur Scherbius applies to patent the Enigma machine.
• Edward Hugh Hebern patents the Hebern rotor machine.
• Technisches Museum Wien opens in Vienna.
• Gaston Julia describes the iteration of a rational function.
• Friedrich Kottler gets a Schwarzschild solution without Einstein vacuum field equations.
• 1918 flu pandemic: "Spanish 'flu" (influenza) first observed in Haskell County, Kansas.
• Theodore von Karman and Asboth Oszkar build the first co-axial helicopter.
• Charles Strite invents the pop-up toaster.
Political Events
• January 8 – President Woodrow Wilson delivers his Fourteen Points speech.
• January 9 – Battle of Bear Valley: U.S. troops engage Yaqui Native American warriors in a minor skirmish in Arizona.
• February 6 – Women's suffrage in the United Kingdom: Representation of the People Act gives most women over 30 the vote.
• March 19 – The United States Congress establishes time zones, and approves daylight saving time.
• March 25 - Karl Muck, music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, is arrested under the Alien Enemies Act.
• May 15 – The United States Post Office Department begins the first regular airmail service.
• May 16 – The Sedition Act of 1918 is approved by the U.S. Congress.
• May 21 – The United States Army Aviation Section is separated from the Signal Corps.
• November 2 – Thomas Kilby is elected the 36th governor of Alabama defeating Dallas B. Smith.
• December 4 – President of the U.S. Woodrow Wilson sails for the Paris Peace Conference.
National Events
• March 4 – A soldier at Camp Funston, Kansas falls sick with the first confirmed case of the Spanish flu.
• April 21 – A 6.7 San Jacinto earthquake shakes southern California, causing $200,000 in damage.
• May 2 – General Motors acquires the Chevrolet Motor Company of Delaware.
• June 29 – Bronx International Exposition of Science, Arts and Industries opens in New York.
• July 9 – In Nashville, Tennessee, an inbound local train collides with an outbound express, killing 101 and injuring 171.
• August 13 – Opha May Johnson becomes the first woman to enlist in the United States Marine Corps.
• August 27 – U.S. Army forces skirmish with Mexican Carrancistas at Nogales, Arizona, in the only battle of World War I fought on U.S. soil.
• October 4 – The T. A. Gillespie Company Shell Loading Plant explosion in New Jersey kills 100+.
• November 1 – The worst rapid transit accident in world history occurs, in Brooklyn, New York City, with at least 93 dead.
• December 19 – Ripley's Believe It or Not! first appears as a cartoon under the title Champs and Chumps in The New York Globe.
Worldwide Events
• January 4 – The Finnish Declaration of Independence is recognized by Soviet Russia, Sweden, Germany and France.
• January 22 – The Ukrainian People's Republic declares independence from Bolshevik Russia.
• February 1 – Cattaro Mutiny: Austrian sailors in the Gulf of Cattaro (Kotor), led by two Czech Socialists, mutiny.
• March 3 – The Central Powers and Bolshevist Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war.
• March 12 – Moscow becomes the capital of Soviet Russia.
• April 1 – The Royal Flying Corps and the Royal Naval Air Service in Britain are merged to form the Royal Air Force.
• May 28 – Armenia and Azerbaijan declare their independence as the First Republic of Armenia.
• June 12 - The first airplane bombing raid by an American unit in France is carried out.
• August 23 – The Bessarabian Peasants' Party is created.
• November 11 – World War I ends.