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Archduke Franz Ferdinand & His Wife are Assassinated
A teenage Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, as their motorcade maneuvered through the streets of Sarajevo. Ferdinand had not been particularly well liked in aristocratic circles. His death quickly set off a chain reaction of events culminating in the outbreak of World War I. -
Germany declares war on Russia & France. Great Britain declares war on Germany & Austria- Hungary
Beginning the First World War. Threatened by Serbian ambition in the tumultuous Balkans region of Europe, Austria-Hungary determined that the proper response to the assassinations was to prepare for a possible military invasion of Serbia. Russia began its own initial steps towards military mobilization against Austria. -
Hollywood, California, becomes the center of movie production in the U.S.
Still today the center of the movie production in U.S. Will still be the center of movie production tomorrow U.S. Many famous actors live in this famous city. -
Alexander Graham Bell makes first transcontinental telephone call.
Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated U.S. transcontinental telephone service as part of a demonstration that included dignitaries in New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Jekyll Island, Ga. Bell, in New York at the time, made the first call to Thomas Watson, his former assistant, who was in San Francisco.Bell and Watson talked by telephone to each other over a two-mile wire stretched between Cambridge and Boston. It was the first wire conversation ever held. -
German U-boats sink the Lusitania, and 1,198 people die
The earlier German attacks on merchant ships off the south coast of Ireland prompted the British Admiralty to warn the Lusitania to avoid the area or take simple evasive action, such as zigzagging to confuse U-boats plotting the vessel’s course. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, probably of the ship’s boilers. The Lusitania sank within 20 minutes. -
Albert Einstein proposes his general theory of relativity.
Proposes general theory of relativity-still central to our understanding of the universe. Einstein changed the political balance of power in the twentieth century, through his scientific foundation in the development of atomic energy. E=mc² -
The battles of Verdun and the Somme claim millions of lives.
One of the largest battles of the First World War. Fought near the Somme River in France, it was also one of the bloodiest military battles in history. On the first day alone, the British suffered more than 57,000 casualties, and by the end of the campaign the Allies and Central Powers would lose more than 1.5 million men. -
Woodrow Wilson is reelected president.
He led America through World War I. An advocate for democracy and world peace, Wilson is often ranked by historians as one of the nation’s greatest presidents. Wilson was a college professor, university president and Democratic governor of New Jersey before winning the White House in 1912. -
The United States declares war on Germany
President Wilson appeared before a joint session of Congress and asked for a declaration of war against Germany in order to "make the world safe for democracy." America thus joined the carnage that had been ravaging Europe since 1914. Germany's renewal of unrestricted submarine warfare and the revelation of a proposed German plot to ally with Mexico against the US. prompted Wilson's action. -
Russia withdraws from the war.
It appeared to benefit Germany at first. However, in the long run, the terms of the Russian withdrawal would come back to haunt Germany. In Russia, the withdrawal led to civil war and forced the Allies to defend the eastern front. -
The Selective Service ACt sets up the Draft
It requiring all men between the ages of 21 and 30 to register with locally administered draft boards for military conscription by national lottery. The age limits for the draft were later extended to include all men from ages 18 to 45. President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly accepted the recommendation for the new draft law by Secretary of War Newton D. Baker. -
President Wilson proposes the League of Nations
The idea of the League was grounded in the broad revulsion against the unprecedented destruction of the First World War and the contemporary understanding of its origins. This was reflected in all of Wilson’s Fourteen Points. These were themselves based on theories of collective security and international organization debated amongst academics, jurists, socialists and utopians before and during the war. -
Congress passes the Sedition Act
Congress extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broad range of spoken or written offenses, including the use of “disloyal, profane, scurrilous or abusive language” about the federal government, the U.S. flag or the armed forces or speech “that caused others to view the American government or its institutions with contempt.” -
The Bolsheciks establish a Communist regime in Russia
Led by Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin, leftist revolutionaries launch a nearly bloodless coup d’État against Russia’s ineffectual Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks and their allies occupied government buildings and other strategic locations in the Russian capital of Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) and within two days had formed a new government with Lenin as its head. Bolshevik Russia, later renamed the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), was the world’s first Marxist state. -
The first world war ends
World War I came to an end following the signing of an armistice between the Allies and Germany that called for a ceasefire effective at 11 a.m.– it was on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. The terms against Germany were Harsh.