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Hollywood, California becomes center of movie production
Various producers and filmmakers moved from the east coast to escape punitive licensing from the Motion Picture Patents Company. The first studio was established in Hollywood by New Jersey based Centaur Co, who wished to make westerns in California. They rented an unused roadhouse at 6121 Sunset Boulevard at the corner of Gowwer and converted it into a movie studio in Oct 1911, calling it Nestor Studio after the name of the west branch of their company. The first feature film in 1914, was The Sq -
Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
A teenage Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, as their motorcade maneuvered through the streets of Sarajevo. Next in line for the Austro-Hungarian throne, Ferdinand had not been particularly well liked in aristocratic circles. -
Gernany declares war on Russia and France.
With Germany officially at war with France and Russia, a conflict originally centered in the tumultuous Balkans region—with the assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, and the subsequent standoff between Austria-Hungary, Serbia and Serbia’s powerful Slavic supporter, Russia—had erupted into a full-scale war. Also on August 3, the first wave of German troops assembled on the frontier of neutral Belgium, which in accord -
Albert Einstein proposes his general theory of relativity
in 1915, Einstein completed the General Theory of Relativity - the product of eight years of work on the problem of gravity. In general relativity Einstein shows that matter and energy actually mold the shape of space and the flow of time. What we feel as the 'force' of gravity is simply the sensation of following the shortest path we can through curved, four-dimensional space-time. It is a radical vision: space is no longer the box the universe comes in; instead, space and time, matter and ener -
Alexander Graham Bell makes from transcontinental telephone call
On Jan. 25, 1915, the inventor of the telephone, 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. -
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 captain of the Lusitania ignored these recommendations, and at 2:12 p.m. on May 7, in the waters of the Celtic Sea, the 32,000-ton ship was hit by an exploding torpedo on its starboard side. The torpedo blast was followed by a larger explosion, proba -
Woodrow Wilson is reelected president.
The United States presidential election of 1916 was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Incumbent President Woodrow Wilson, the Democratic candidate, was pitted against Supreme Court Justice Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. After a hard-fought contest, Wilson defeated Hughes by nearly 600,000 votes in the popular vote and secured a narrow majority in the Electoral College by winning several swing states with razor-thin margins. -
Russia withdrawls from the war
Russia signalled her withdrawal from World War One soon after the October Revolution of 1917, and the country turned in on itself with a bloody civil war between the Bolsheviks and the conservative White Guard. -
The U.S, declares war on Germany.
President Woodrow Wilson asking Congress to declare war on Germany on April 2, 1917. On April 6, 1917, the United States Congress declared war upon the German Empire; on April 2, President Woodrow Wilson had asked a special joint session of Congress for this declaration. -
The Selective Service Act sets up the draft.
The Selective Service Act or Selective Draft Act (Pub.L. 65–12, 40 Stat. 76, enacted May 18, 1917) authorized the federal government to raise a national army for the American entry into World War I through the compulsory enlistment of people. It was envisioned in December 1916 and brought to President Woodrow Wilson's attention shortly after the break in relations with Germany in February 1917. The Act itself was drafted by then-Captain (later Brigadier General) Hugh S. Johnson after the United -
The Bolsheviks establish a Communist regime in Russia.
In the October Revolution (November in the Gregorian calendar), the Bolshevik party, led by Vladimir Lenin, and the workers' Soviets, overthrew the Provisional Government in Petrograd and established the Russian SFSR, eventually shifting the capital to Moscow in 1918. The Bolsheviks appointed themselves as leaders of various government ministries and seized control of the countryside, establishing the Cheka to quash dissent. To end Russia’s participation in the First World War, the Bolshevik lea -
President Wilson proposes the League of Nations
In this January 8, 1918, speech on War Aims and Peace Terms, President Wilson set down 14 points as a blueprint for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations after World War I. The details of the speech were based on reports generated by “The Inquiry,” a group of about 150 political and social scientists organized by Wilson’s adviser and long-time friend, Col. Edward M House. Their job was to study Allied and American policy in virtually every region of the globe and analyze economi -
Congress passes the Sedition Act.
On this day in 1918, 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 legislation, chiefly aimed at socialists, pacifists and other anti-war activists, came to be known as the Sedition Act. It was tied to the U.S -
The first World War ends.
On Nov. 11, 1918, fighting in 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 -
A worldwide influenza epidemic kills over 30 mil.
World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world's population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.
The plague emerged in two phases. In late spring of 1918, the first phase, known as the "three-day fever," appeared without warning. Few deaths were reported. Victims recovered after a few days. When th -
Congress approves the Nineteenth Amendment granting women the right to vote
The 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, guaranteeing women the right to vote, is passed by Congress and sent to the states for ratification. The women’s suffrage movement was founded in the mid-19th century by women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements. In July 1848, 240 woman suffragists, including Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to assert the right of women to vote. Female enfranchisemen -
The battes of Verdun and Somme claim millions of lives.
February 21, 1916 - On the Western Front, the German 5th Army attacks the French 2nd Army north of the historic city of Verdun, following a nine-hour artillery bombardment. The Germans under Chief of the General Staff, Erich Falkenhayn, seek to "bleed" the French Army to death by targeting the cherished city. At first, the Germans make rapid gains along the east bank of the Meuse River, overrunning bombed out French trenches, and capture lightly defended Fort Douaumont four days later without fi