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Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his wife, visit Sarajevo in Bosnia. A bomb is thrown at their auto but misses. But they still continue their visit only to be shot and killed a short time later by a lone assassin. People think the assassin is a Serbian nationalist, the Austrians get angry. This would then cause a butterfly affect that would soon get America involved. -
Great Britain declares war on Germany. The declaration connects all of the Dominions in the British Empire like Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa. However the United States declares their neutrality. Germans attack the Belgian fortress city but Belgian troops resisted. Areas surrounding the city get bombed by German and Austrian howitzers using explosives. Remaining Belgian troops then retreat to Antwerp as the Germans continued to go West. America will stay neutral for now. -
A German U-Boat torpedoes the British passenger liner Lusitania off the Irish coast. It sinks in 18 minutes, drowning 1,201 people, including 128 Americans. After that President Wilson sends four diplomatic protests to Germany. Due to them not being involved yet reeking the damages. This would become a controversy for the United States, Americans demanding to declare war on Germany. But President Wilson wants to hold on, and try to maintain neutrality for the time of war. -
American voters would re-elect President Woodrow Wilson who campaigned on the slogan, "He kept us out of war." The Americans appreciated Wilsons approach to the war, no conflict and peace instead. However this peace would soon be broken. -
The British intercept a telegram sent by Alfred Zimmermann in German Foreign Office to the German embassies in Washington, D.C., and Mexico City. The message plans for German and Mexico to team up against the United States. According to the scheme, Germany would provide tactical support while Mexico would benefit by expanding in the American Southwest, getting territories back. The telegram is passed along by the British to the Americans, which outraged them. -
America has had enough of Germany's schemes and sets up a declaration of war on them. The declaration of war was a response to the submarine war that Germany had been using on their enemies. -
The first American troops would land in France. About 14,000 men to increase French and British units in defending their lines and in planning attacks on German positions. -
The Sedition Act of 1918 was enacted on May 16, 1918 to extend the Espionage Act of 1917. This Act covered a wider range of offenses, like speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a bad light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. -
At 5:10 am, in a railway car at Compiègne, France, Germans sign the Armistice, at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. Fighting continues all along the Western Front until exactly 11 o'clock, with about 2,000 casualties experienced that day by all sides. Artillery barrages also happened as 11 am comes close as soldiers argued to claim they fired the very last shot in the war. -
At the Palace of Versailles in France, a German delegation signs the Treaty finally ending the war. Its 230 pages contain terms that have little in common with American president Wilson's Fourteen Points as the Germans had hoped. Germans back home respond with lots of demonstrations against the perceived harshness, especially clauses that assess their blame for the war on Germany.