Our Family History

The Genealogy of Robert and Christina Barritt

1918 - 1919 (1 year)

	Date	Event(s)
1	1918	1918: UK - Influenza Epidemic 1918: Russia - Czar Nicholas II and his family are killed 1918: UK - Summer:Great Influenza Epidemic begins, reaches height end of year, new outbreak first quarter of 1919: England and Wales lose 150,000 (15,000 in London alone) 1918: UK - Final casualties for World War I - almost 1 million British Empire men killed, about 3 million maimed (744,000 killed are from UK) 1918: UK - Women over 30 given the vote (complete voting equality with men comes in 1928), all men over 21 (except peers, lunatics and felons) given vote 1918: UK - Consumer purchasing power now about 1/3 of what it was in 1914 1918: USA - Charles Jung invented fortune cookies. 1918: UK - Police strikes this year and the next 9 Nov 1918: Europe - Kaiser abdicates, peace signed two days later at Treaty of Versailles, ending World War I
2	1919	1919: UK - Eddington and Frank W. Dyson measured the bending of starlight by the gravitational pull of the sun, thus confirming Einstein's general theory of relativity 1919: USA - Prohibition Begins in the U.S. 1919: Ireland - Irish Republican Army begins terrorist campaign against police ('Black and Tans') and their families 1919: London, UK - First woman in House of Commons, Viscountess Astor 1919: Ireland - Alcock and Brown arrive after flying across the Atlantic 1919: UK - Strikes and riots in Glasgow for 40- hour week; National Industrial Conference convenes, trades union representatives resign in disgust 1919: Europe - Regular air service commences across the English Channel 1919: UK - Post-war boom collapses, unemployment problem, 1920 Act provides small payment under National Insurance Scheme 1919: UK - Most war-time rationing ends 1919: UK - One-week railway strike - Emergency Powers Act passed to give government war-time powers to deal with threats from 'Triple Alliance' of miners, railwaymen and dockers, re high prices, shortage of housing 1919: UK - The pop-up toaster invented by Charles Strite. 1919: UK - Short-wave radio invented. 1919: UK - The arc welder invented. 1919: UK - Runaway inflation; Coal Mines Act (1919) and Mining Industry Act (1920) create 7-hour day for miners plus minor reforms Jun 1919: UK - Sir Ernest Rutherford publishes account of splitting atom