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the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, in Sarajevo, Bosnia and it led to War. -
President Woodrow Wilson officially proclaimed the neutrality of the United States in response to the outbreak of World War I in Europe. This decision was aligned with the sentiments of the majority of Americans at the time, who preferred to remain uninvolved in the escalating conflict. -
Democratic U.S. President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeated Republican Charles E. Hughes in the U.S. presidential election. Republican Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman elected to the United States House of Representatives. -
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. -
President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. -
the United States declared war on the German Empire, joining France, Great Britain, Russia, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and Italy. They were arrayed against Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. -
The first 14,000 U.S. infantry troops landed in France at the port of Saint Nazaire. The landing site had been kept secret because of the menace of German submarines. -
The Sedition Act of 1918 was enacted on May 16, 1918 to extend the Espionage Act of 1917. The Sedition Act covered a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. -
World War I Ends. On November 11, 1918 an armistice was signed between the Germans and the Allies, ending World War I. -
The Versailles Peace Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, officially ended World War I. Of note, on the same day, five-years earlier the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria was assassinated at Sarajevo, Bosnia, starting the war.
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