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March 3, 1918, in the city of Brest-Litovsk, located in modern-day Belarus near the Polish border, Russia signed a treaty with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria) ending its participation in World War I -
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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, crowned to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo (the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina) on 28 June 1914 eventually led to the outbreak of the First World War. -
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir to Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg, are killed by Gavrilo Princip. A month later, Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia and Europe rapidly descends into chaos. -
Germany invades Luxembourg and Belgium. France invades Alsace. British forces arrive in France. Nations allied against Germany were eventually to include Great Britain, Russia, Italy, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Rhodesia, Romania, Greece, France, Belgium, United States, Canada, Serbia, India, Portugal, Montenegro, and Poland. -
Austria-Hungary invades Russia. -
Having implemented the Schlieffen Plan at the war's outset, German forces swung through Belgium and into France from north. -
The German government regarded the blockade as an attempt to starve the country into defeat and wanted to retaliate in kind. -
25 April 1915, Allied troops landed on the Gallipoli peninsula in Ottoman Turkey. The Gallipoli campaign was the land-based element of a strategy intended to allow Allied ships to pass through the Dardanelles, capture Constantinople (now Istanbul) and ultimately knock Ottoman Turkey out of the war. -
The Treaty of London was signed on 26 April 1915 and Italy declared war against Austria-Hungary on 23 May 1915. -
The Battle of Verdun began on 21 February 1916 at 7.15 am when the German army began pounding the forts and trenches with artillery fire. 1,200 guns smashed the French positions. -
on 1 July 1916 after a week-long artillery bombardment of the German lines. Advancing British troops found that the German defences had not been destroyed as expected and many units suffered very high casualties with little progress -
World War I engagement in which the French repulsed a major German offensive. It was one of the longest, bloodiest, and most-ferocious battles of the war; French casualties amounted to about 400,000, German ones to about 350,000. Some 300,000 were killed. -
Germany's resumption of submarine attacks on passenger and merchant ships in 1917 became the primary motivation behind Wilson's decision to lead the United States into World War I. -
The American public was outraged by the news of the Zimmermann telegram and it, along with Germany's resumption of submarine attacks, helped lead to the United States joining the war. -
June 28, 1919, the Treaty of Versailles was signed at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, France. The treaty was one of several that officially ended five years of conflict known as the Great War—World War I.