1908

The year 1918 will be remembered because of the earthquake that struck Messina and Calabria, killing around 75,000 people.

Important events

For the first time in history the ball that signifies “New Year’s Day” was dropped in Times Square for the first time. It was to become a tradition held out every year.
On the 1st of February Portugal’s king, Carlos I, together with Prince Luis were shot in Lisbon.
April 21 – This is the day in which Friedrich A Cook is believed to have reached the North Pole. On July 6 of the same year, another explorer, Robert Peary, set sail with the Arctic North Pole as a destination.
July 19 – The birth date of Feyenoord Rotterdam, a football club that played its part in sports history. It is one of the most important clubs in Holland, together with Ajax Amsterdam.
October 5 – One of the most important dates in the history of Bulgaria, it signed its independence from the Ottoman Empire. Ferdinand I of Bulgaria was to become the first Tsar.
December 28 – 75,000 people were killed in Messina, Sicily. The reason was an earthquake that was registered with a 7 on the Richter scale. Calabria was also affected and a part of the recorded deaths was in that area.

Other events have also been important in 1918. The precise date when they happened is not known. The most significant ones were:

The discovery of a 40,000 year old Neanderthal skeleton in France
The foundation of Panathinaikos Football Club in Athens.
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became the first woman to be elected mayor in England (for the town of Aldeburgh).

January 27 – American Jazz musician Oran "Hot Lips" Page. He would die in 1945.
February 29 – Bathus, an important French Painter that would die in 2001.
March 29 – Arthur O’Connell, American actor. He died in 1981.
The month of may saw the birth of two people that were to become Nobel Prize laureates. They were John Bardeen (May 23) and Hannes Alfvén (May 30).
August 27 - Lyndon Johnson. He would become the President of the United States of America and died in 1973.
December 4 - Alfred Hershey. He was an American bacteriologist that eventually received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He died in 1997.