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Ultimately 80 people died, including two American citizens. Cross-channel ferry Sussex at Boulogne after being torpedoed in March 1916. The entire forepart of the ship was destroyed in the attack. President Wilson was furious at this breaking of the Arabic Pledge. -
On Sunday, 28 June 1914, at about 10:45 am, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The perpetrator was 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia and one of a group of assassins organized and armed by the Black Hand. -
The US maintained neutrality in World War I from 1914 until April 1917, largely due to a policy of non-intervention in European affairs and public desire to stay out of the conflict. However, this was a complicated neutrality, as the US economy favored the Allied powers through trade and loans, and factors like German submarine warfare, propaganda, and cultural ties eroded American impartiality, eventually leading to the US entering the war. -
Miracle on the Marne – The PastThe Battle of the Marne refers to two major battles in World War I: the First Battle of the Marne (1914), a decisive Allied victory that stopped the German advance on Paris, and the Second Battle of the Marne (1918), a key Allied offensive that marked a turning point in the war. The First Battle is particularly known for the Allied counter-offensive, the use of Parisian taxis to transport troops, and the subsequent start of trench warfare on the Western Front. -
The sinking of the Lusitania was the torpedoing and sinking of a British ocean liner by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915. The attack killed 1,195 people, including 128 Americans, and caused outrage in the United States, which was officially neutral. This event solidified anti-German public opinion, and when Germany resumed unrestricted submarine warfare, it became a major contributing factor to the U.S. entering World War I in 1917. -
The Battle of Verdun was a prolonged and devastating conflict during World War I, fought between February and December 1916 near Verdun, France. The battle was a German offensive aimed at a symbolic French fortress resulting in horrific casualties for both sides estimated at nearly 700,000 total. The French, defending their "sacred" fortress, ultimately halted the German advance, making the battle a significant symbolic victory for France and a turning point in the war.