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At around 11 a.m. today, two shots rang out from a street corner in the center of this city, mortally wounding the archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Sophie the Duchess of Hohenberg, his wife. A suspect, a 19-year old Bosnian-Serb named Gavrilo Princip, was apprehended.
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A month after the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie on July 28, 1914, the Austro-Hungarian government declares war on Serbia. Immediately, and within a period of six days, European countries declare war upon one another. -
Prior to World War I, The Schlieffen Plan established that, in case of the outbreak of war, Germany would attack France first and then Russia. Instead of a 'head-on' engagement, which would lead to position warfare of inestimable length, the opponent should be enveloped and its armies attacked on the flanks and rear.
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The Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes, also known as the Winter Battle of the Masurian Lakes, was the northern part of the Central Powers' offensive on the Eastern Front in the winter of 1915. The offensive was intended to advance beyond the Vistula River and perhaps knock Russia out of the war.
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The First Battle of the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. It was fought in a collection of skirmishes around the Marne River Valley. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the west.
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Gallipoli was the first major amphibious operation in modern warfare. British Empire and French troops landed on the Ottoman-held peninsula in the Dardanelles Straits with disastrous consequences for the Allies.
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the German submarine (U-boat) U-20 torpedoed and 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.
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It was originally planned by the German Chief of General Staff, Erich von Falkenhayn to secure victory for Germany on the Western Front. The aim was to crush the French army before the Allies grew in strength through the full deployment of British forces.
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Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was a Russian mystic and self-proclaimed holy man. He is best-known for having befriended the royal family of Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, through whom he gained considerable influence in the later years of the Russian Empire.
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This telegram, written by German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann, is a coded message sent to Mexico, proposing a military alliance against the United States.
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Wilson asked Congress to declare war against Germany specifically citing Germany's renewed submarine policy as “a war against mankind. It is a war against all nations.” He also spoke about German spying inside the U.S. and the treachery of the Zimmermann Telegram.
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By the terms of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Russia recognized the independence of Ukraine, Georgia and Finland; gave up Poland and the Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia to Germany and Austria-Hungary; and ceded Kars, Ardahan and Batum to Turkey.
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The microscopic killer circled the entire globe in four months, claiming the lives of more than 21 million people. The United States lost 675,000 people to the Spanish flu in 1918-more casualties than World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.
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after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Although fighting continued elsewhere, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was the first step to ending World War I. -
The League of Nations officially came into existence on 10 January 1920. On 15 November 1920, 41 members states gathered in Geneva for the opening of the first session of the Assembly. This represented a large portion of existing states and corresponded to more than 70% of the world's population.
