
22/9/1919. Major steel strike in the USA.
31/8/1919. The US Communist Party was founded.
15/3/1919, Delegates from the American Expeditionary Force founded the American Legion Organisation of Veterans, to support veteran’s welfare.
11/2/1919, The Overman Committee was set up in the US, and played a crucial role in constructing image of the Red Radical Soviet’ threat to the US. It was a precursor to the HUAC (House Committee of Un-American Activities).
3/2/1919, US President Woodrow Wilson attended the first meeting of the League of Nations in Paris.
26/2/1919, In the USA, the Grand Canyon National Park opened.
15/1/1919, A tank containing 8.7 million litres of warm molasses in Boston, USA, burst. A 5-metre high wave of molasses swept through the docks area at 60 mph, wrecking buildings. 21 people were killed and 150 injured. Many died as the molasses cooled and became more viscous, suffocating its victims.
14/12/1918, President Woodrow Wilson arrived in Paris for peace talks.
11/11/1918. Armistice Day. World War One ended. Fighting ceased on the Western Front, and Austro-Hungary signed an armistice with the Allies. See 29/9/1918. Church bells rang out across Britain in celebration. The Allies had not expected such a sudden collapse of Germany; in September 1918 they were planning campaigns for 1919. However General Ludendorff was shaken by the sudden Allied advance (see 8/8/1918) and begged Kaiser Wilhelm to seek an armistice immediately. The Armistice was signed in Marshal Foch’s railway carriage, near Compiegne. Warsaw became the capital of a restored Polish State. The armistice required Germany to relinquish 5,000 heavy guns, 30,000 machine guns, 2,000 aircraft, all U-boats, 5,000 locomotives, 150,000 wagons and 5,000 lorries. The surface fleet was to be interned (see 21/11/1918), the Allies were to occupy the Rhineland, and the blockade of German ports would continue. World War One cost 9 million lives, with a further 27 million injured. Britain alone had lost 750,000 men, and a further 200,000 from the Empire, with another 1.5 million seriously injured. The War had cost the Allies an estimated US$ 126 billion, and the Central Powers a further US$ 60 billion. Britons now celebrated, and wages rose, although higher food prices eroded some of those gains. Women, at least those over 30, finally had the vote, and smoking, gambling and movies boomed, with Charlie Chaplin as movie star.
The US was the greatest beneficiary of the War. US losses amounted to 53,000 men, a small number compared to 8,500,000 casualties of the European combatants. US industry had become more efficient, and key sectors such as chemicals had learned to do without Europe; the US aviation industry had been transformed. Economically, The US had needed European capital before 1914; by 1918 Europe owed the US some US$ 10,000 million.
29/9/1918. Allied troops captured part of the Hindenburg Line. Ludendorff called for an armistice to avert a catastrophe for Germany. Negotiations opened with President Woodrow Wilson of the USA on 4/10/1918 but fighting continued till 11/11/1918.
15/8/1918. The US severed diplomatic relations with the Bolshevik government of Russia.
4/6/1918, Charles Warren Fairbanks, US statesman, died in Indianapolis, Indiana (born 11/5/1852 in Ohio).
12/5/1918, Julius Rosenberg was born (see 19/6/1953).
19/3/1918, US Congress passed the Standard Time Act making the 4 US time zones official.
9/1/1918, U.S troops engaged Yaqui Indian warriors in the Battle of Bear Valley in Arizona, a minor skirmish and one of the last battles of the American Indian Wars between the United States and American Indians.
7/12/1917. The USA declared war on Austria.
4/8/1917. The US said avoiding conscription could be punished with execution.
15/7/1917, US Congress passed the Espionage Act. Section 1 introduced heavy penalties, of up to 20 years in prison, for anyone causing insubordination or disloyalty in the armed forces, or obstructing recruitment; 2,000 prosecutions were brought under this measure. The Act also empowered the US Postmaster to exclude fro