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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg were assassinated in Sarajevo by angry citizen. -
Britain declared war on Germany. And just days later the British, after concentrating near Maubeuge, France, had moved up to Mons on August 22, ready to advance farther into Belgium as part of an offensive by the Allied left wing. -
the German submarine (U-boat) sank the Lusitania, a swift-moving British cruise liner traveling from New York to Liverpool, England. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children on board, 1,195 perished, including 123 Americans. The Lusitania secretly was carrying weapons for the allies. This ship later fueled the anger of the American people. -
Democratic President Woodrow Wilson wins the Election. -
British naval intercepted and decrypted a telegram sent by German Foreign Minister Arthur Zimmermann to the German Ambassador in Mexico City. The “Zimmermann Telegram” promised the Mexican Government that they would help Mexico recover the territory they lost to the U.S in the Mexican American War. In return, Germany asked for support in the war. Even with this evidence Wilson was still wary about going to war. -
The United States declared war on the German Empire (after the U.S. Senate voted in congress), joining France, Great Britain, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Italy. -
At the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines. The “Doughboys,” as the British referred to the green American troops, were at this stage untrained, ill-equipped, and far from ready for the difficulties of fighting along the Western Front. -
A piece of legislation designed to protect America’s participation in WW1. Basically, made it a crime to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, p, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States" -
France, the Germans sign the Armistice which is effective at 11 am--the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Fighting continues all along the Western Front until precisely 11 o'clock, with 2,000 casualties experienced that day by all sides. -
Hitler soon joins the group and begins to build it up, later changing its name to the National Socialist German Workers' (Nazi) Party. The anti-democratic group vehemently opposes the Treaty of Versailles and claims the German Army was not defeated on the battlefield but was betrayed by a "stab in the back" wrought by disloyal politicians on the home front.