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McKinley served as President March 4th, 1897, until his death on September 14th, 1901 from a wound sustained from the assassination attempt of anarchist Leon Czolgosz eight days before. After his assassination, his vice president (Theodore Roosevelt) succeeded him and made history as the youngest president at that time to ever assume office. Czolgosz was sentenced to the electric chair.
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After President McKinley died from an assassination attempt, Roosevelt assumed office and served as President until 1909. President Roosevelt is arguably most well-known for his establishment of national parks, his leadership of the Rough Riders in the Spanish-American War, and his strong, bombastic personality. He also popularized the term "bully pulpit" as a phrase denoting a position of political authority that gives its holder a unique ability to speak out about political issues.
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Orville and Wilbur Wright spent years attempting to develop the airplane. Finally, on December 17th, 1903, they experienced success when Orville piloted a glider about 110 feet high for at least 11 seconds on the beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Their further development of the airplane would revolutionize modern warfare and eventually, transportation.
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President Taft is remembered for his obesity and his conservative politics in an era otherwise marked largely by political reform. Preceded by Theodore Roosevelt and succeeded by Woodrow Wilson, Taft was not popular enough to be elected to a second term in office. The policy he is most known for is his policy of trust-busting. His term ended in 1913.
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Beginning on November 11th, 1910, when Francisco Madero defeated sitting Mexican President Porfiro Diaz, the Mexican Revolution was a power struggle between different political factions of the government. As a result of a decade of fighting, nearly 12% of Mexico's population died. The violence extended into America when Mexican Revolutionary leader Pancho Villa raided New Mexico in 1916. President Wilson dispatched John "Black Jack" Pershing to beat the Mexicans and amassed National Guard units.
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Wilson succeeded President Taft in 1913. Wilson is arguably most well-known for his creation of the League of Nations and his drafting of the 14 points that formed the organization's founding document. Despite his 1916 campaign promise to keep the US out of World War I, Wilson requested a declaration of war from Congress in 1917 after news of the Zimmerman Telegram broke. Wilson suffered a stroke on December 2nd, 1919, which left him largely incapacitated in the last two years of his presidency.
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The heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, was assassinated while driving through the streets of Sarajevo. Gavrilo Princip, a Serbian terrorist affiliated with the Black Hand, shot him from the crowd. Ferdinand's assassination was the event that ultimately catalyzed World War I.
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On July 28th, 1914, Austria Hungary declared war on Serbia, marking the beginning of the war. Over the next four years, at least 15 million people were killed and countless others were injured.
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The Battle of Verdun was a bloody stalemate of World War I fought between the French and German militaries in France near the hills of Verdun-sur-Meuse. The Germans initiated the offensive on February 21st, 1916. The offensive was concluded on December 18th, 1916, with a French victory.
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After the Russian army joined hungry strikers at the palace in Petrograd, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated the Russian throne on March 15th, 1917, ending the Romanov dynasty's rule of Russia. His poor, indecisive leadership in World War I and his family's proximity to the unpopular Rasputin had greatly stained his public image. In the ensuing chaos, Bolshevik Vladimir Lenin seized power. The Romanovs would be shot under Lenin's orders in Ekaterinburg by Bolshevik soldiers on July 17th, 1918.
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The Spanish Influenza Pandemic began in 1918 with the first documented cases occurring on a Kansas military base in the spring. The disease was rapidly transmitted across the globe due to soldiers returning home at the end of World War I. Killing an estimated 20-50 million people globally, the pandemic targeted young, healthy adults aged 15-34 years of age and as a result lowered the life expectancy for Americans by more than ten years. The pandemic faded in the early 1920s.
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Ratified in 1919 as the 18th amendment, Prohibition aimed to curtail widespread alcohol abuse by simply prohibiting the sale of alcohol. The amendment was greatly unpopular and was finally repealed in 1933 by the 21st amendment. Two major unintended consequences of the 18th amendment were a spike in organized crime and the criminalization of significant portions of American society.
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