declaring Lithuania's independence from Germany, Russia or any other state. February 18 – Operations against the Marri and Khetran tribes in Balochistan by British authorities begin. February 19 – WWI: The Capture of Jericho by the Egyptian Expeditionary Force begins the British occupation of the Jordan Valley. February 19–25 – WWI: The Imperial Russian Navy evacuates Tallinn through thick ice, over the Gulf of Finland. February 21 – The last Carolina parakeet (the last breed of parrot native to the eastern United States) dies in captivity at the Cincinnati Zoo. February 23 – Estonian Declaration of Independence from Russia, after seven centuries of foreign rule; German forces capture Tallinn the following day. March March 1 – WWI: German submarine sinks off Rathlin Island, Northern Ireland. March 3 – WWI: The Central Powers and Bolshevist Russia sign the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, ending Russia's involvement in the war. March 6 The Finnish Army Corps of Aviation is founded as a forerunner of the Finnish Air Force (established on 4 May 1928). The blue swastika is adopted as its symbol, as a tribute to the Swedish explorer and aviator Eric von Rosen, who donated the first plane. Von Rosen had painted the Viking symbol on the plane as his personal lucky insignia. The first pilotless drone, the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane developed by Elmer Ambrose Sperry and Peter Cooper Hewitt, is test-flown in Long Island, New York, but development is scrapped in 1925, after its guidance system proves unreliable. March 7 - WWI: Finland forms an alliance with Germany. March 8 – WWI: The Battle of Tell 'Asur is launched by units of the British Army's Egyptian Expeditionary Force against Ottoman defences from the Mediterranean Sea, across the Judaean Mountains to the edge of the Jordan Valley; it ends on March 12, with the move of much of the front line north into Ottoman territory. March 12 – Moscow becomes the capital of Soviet Russia. March 15 – Finnish Civil War: The battle of Tampere began. March 19 – The United States Congress establishes time zones, and approves daylight saving time (DST goes into effect on March 31). March 21–July 18 – WWI: The Spring Offensive by the German Army along the Western Front fails to make a breakthrough, despite large losses on each side, including nearly 20,000 British Army dead on the first day, Operation Michael, on the Somme. March 21 – WWI: