-
Assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
On this day in 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. -
WWI Begins and US Reaction
As war raged in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson argued that the United States should remain neutral in this conflict, urging Americans to be “impartial in thought as well as in action.” Given the distance between the United States and Europe, Americans readily embraced Wilson’s neutral stance. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
On the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, she was commandeered by the Admiralty as an armed merchant cruiser, but proved unsuitable in this role, and was allowed to resume passenger services on condition that she carried government cargoes. When she left New York for Liverpool on what would be her final voyage on 1 May 1915, submarine warfare was intensifying in the Atlantic. Germany had declared the seas around the United Kingdom to be a war-zone, and Germans in America had been specifica -
Arabic Pledge
On May 7, 1915, Imperial German Navy U-boat U-20 sank the RMS Lusitania off the coast of Ireland. The Germans attacked the Lusitania without warning and the ship went down within 18 minutes. 1198 people on board died. The passenger liner had departed from the port of New York City with many American citizens on board, 128 of whom were killed when the ship sank (including a member of the famous Vanderbilt family). The U.S. government condemned the German action and U.S. President Woodrow Wilso -
He Kept Us Out of War
The Democrats built their campaign around the slogan, "He Kept Us out of War," saying a Republican victory would mean war with both Mexico and Germany. -
Pncho Villa Raids Mexico
Villa's famous raid on Columbus, New Mexico in 1916, U.S. Army General John J. Pershing tried unsuccessfully to capture Villa in a nine-month pursuit that ended when the United States entered into World War I and Pershing was called back. Villa retired in 1920 and was given a large estate which he turned into a "military colony" for his former soldiers. In 1923, he decided to re-involve himself in Mexican politics and as a result was assassinated, most likely on the orders of Obregón. -
Sussex Pledge
The Sussex pledge was a promise made in 1916 during World War I by Germany to the United States prior to the latter's entry into the war. Early in 1916, Germany had instituted a policy of unrestricted submarine warfare,[1] allowing armed merchant ships – but not passenger ships – to be torpedoed without warning. Despite this avowed restriction, a French cross-channel passenger ferry, the Sussex, was torpedoed without warning on March 24, 1916; the ship was severely damaged and about 50 lives wer -
Resumption of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
On 22 December 1916, Admiral von Holtzendorff composed a memorandum which became the pivotal document for Germany's resumption of unrestricted U-boat warfare in 1917.
On 3 February, in response to the new submarine campaign, President Wilson severed all diplomatic relations with Germany, and the U.S. Congress declared war on 6 April. -
Zimmerman Note
The Zimmermann Telegram (or Zimmermann Note) was a 1917 diplomatic proposal from the German Empire to Mexico to make war against the United States. The proposal was intercepted and decoded by British intelligence. Revelation of the contents outraged American public opinion and helped generate support for the United States declaration of war on Germany in April.[ -
Russian Revolution
In 1917, two revolutions swept through Russia, ending centuries of imperial rule and setting in motion political and social changes that would lead to the formation of the Soviet Union. In March, growing civil unrest, coupled with chronic food shortages, erupted into open revolt, forcing the abdication of Nicholas II (1868-1918), the last Russian czar. Just months later, the newly installed provisional government was itself overthrown by the more radical Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin (1870-1
