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Archduke Franz Ferdinand is assassinated in Sarajevo. His death is the event that sparks World War I.
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Germany invades Belgium, beginning World War I.
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By the time the United States entered World War I, the conflict had reached a deadly stalemate. The opposing armies stared at one another across no man’s land, a shell torn, body strewn, machine-gun policed stretch of earth separating the trenches that sliced across France from Belgium to Germany.18
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The German high command recognized that a window had opened in the spring of 1918. Revolution had forced Russia to withdraw from the war allowing Germany to transfer troops from the eastern to the western front. U-boat attacks were taking a devastating toll on Allied shipping. The French army’s morale was low and the French public was clamoring for peace
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Having earned their spurs at Château-Thierry and Belleau Wood, American troops were assigned increasingly important parts during the German’s summer offensive. More than 25,000 Yankees manned the left side of the Allied lines when Germany attempted to crash through along a 20-mile front stretching between Montdidier and Noyon on 9 June. And more than 270,000 would fight in the tide-turning Second Battle of the Marne in July.
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An Armistice is signed ending fighting on the Western Front
