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Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
a teenage Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, as their motorcade maneuvered through the streets of Sarajevo -
Great War begins
the immediate cause was the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the archduke of Austria-Hungary. His death at the hands of Gavrilo Princip – a Serbian nationalist with ties to the secretive military group known as the Black Hand – propelled the major European military powers towards war. -
Lusitania sank
British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. -
Battle of the Somme
Battle of the Somme is famous chiefly on account of the loss of 58,000 British troops (one third of them killed) on the first day of the battle, 1 July 1916, which to this day remains a one-day record. -
Wilson re-elected
Woodrow Wilson became the first Democratic president since Andrew Jackson to be elected to two consecutive terms of office when he defeated Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes in the 1916 Presidential Election. -
Zimmerman note intercepted
and deciphered by British intelligence in January 1917,Zimmermann instructed the ambassador, Count Johann von Bernstorff, to offer significant financial aid to Mexico if it agreed to enter any future U.S-German conflict as a German ally. -
US declares war on Germany
8:30 on the evening of April 2, 1917, 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." -
Selective Service Act
authorized the federal government to raise a national army for the American entry into World War I through the compulsory enlistment of people -
Espionage Age passed
the Espionage Act essentially made it a crime for any person to convey information intended to interfere with the U.S. armed forces prosecution of the war effort or to promote the success of the country’s enemies. -
Russia pulls out of the war
Lenin wanted to concentrate on building up a communist state and wanted to pull Russia out of the war. -
Flu Epidemic
flu pandemic was an unusually deadly influenza pandemic, the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus. -
Fourteen Points speech
In the speech, Wilson directly addressed what he perceived as the causes for the world war by calling for the abolition of secret treaties, a reduction in armaments, an adjustment in colonial claims in the interests of both native peoples and colonists, and freedom of the seas. -
Kaiser declares “open season” on ships
A full two years before Germany’s aggressive naval policy would draw the United States into the war against them, Kaiser Wilhelm announces an important step in the development of that policy, proclaiming the North Sea a war zone, in which all merchant ships, including those from neutral countries, were liable to be sunk without warning. -
Sedition Act passed
made it a crime to "willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States" or to "willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production" of the things " -
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Convoy system
driven by the spectacular success of the German U-boat submarines and their attacks on Allied and neutral ships at sea, the British Royal Navy introduces a newly created convoy system, whereby all merchant ships crossing the Atlantic Ocean would travel in groups under the protection of the British navy. -
Germany signs armistice
At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the Great War ends. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion, signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside Compiégne, France.
