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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, were shot dead Saravejo on June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand was the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife was the Duchess of Hohenberg. They were both shot dead when they were on the way to the opening of a hospital, which they were invited to by General Oskar Potiorek, Governor of the Austrian provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The man who assassinated the couple was a Serbian Nationalist, Gavrilo Princip. -
The Battle of the Frontiers begins.
A series of battles shortly after the outbreak of World War 1 fought along the eastern frontiers of France and in southern Belgium. All of the battles represented a collision between the military strategies of the French Plan XVII and the German Schlieffen Plan. -
German U-boats
The Germans began their first campaign of submarine warfare aimed at allied and neutral merchant vessels in the waters surrounding the UK. Germany also declares blockade to Britain. -
The Second Battle of Ypres begins.
This war was the first time Germany used poisonous gas on a scale on the Western Front in the First World War. This was also the first time a formal colonial force, the Canadians, pushed a major European power back, the Germans, on European soil. -
Battle of Jutland
It took place between the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet of the mainland of Denmark. The British Admiral Beatty defeated the weaker German Admiral Hipper, then fled north they were followed by the German Dreadnoughts.This was the largest naval battle in history with no clear victory. -
Woodrow Wilson Re-Election
Woodrow Wilson re-elected President of the United States. His campaign slogan was : "He kept us out of the war." The campaign incluided President Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. After a hard-fought contest, Wilson defeated Hughes by a small amount of votes. -
Selective Service Act
The United States passes the Selective Service Act empowering the Federal Government to draft men for the armed forces. It authorized the federal government to raise a national army numbering in the hundreds of thousands with which to fight a modern war. Along with the end of the war the Act was cancelled November 1918. -
US Espionage Act passed
President Woodrow Wilson's Espionage Act states, "obtaining information respecting the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information to be obtained is to be used to the injury of the United States." His goal was to proctect America from internal hostilities. -
Treaty of Brest-Litovsk
The Treaty or Brest-Litovsk as a peace treaty signed on March 3, 1918, at Brest-Litovsk between Russia and the Central Powers, marking. This treaty marked Russia's exit from World War 1. -
Armistice (The End of World War I)
At eleven o'clock on the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the war ends as Germany and Allies sign an Armistice. The leaders of both sides held a meeting in Ferdinand Foch's railway carriage headquarters at Compiegne. The Armistice was signed at 6am and came into force five hours later
