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Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, visit Sarajevo in Bosnia. A bomb is thrown at their auto but misses. Undaunted, they continue their visit only to be shot and killed a short time later by a lone assassin. Believing the assassin to be a Serbian nationalist. -
President Woodrow Wilson declared U.S. neutrality on August 4, 1914, and many Americans saw little reason to entangle themselves in what they viewed as European quarreling and intrigue. As the war persisted and the destruction spread, many Americans could not ignore the crisis. It let a lot of Americans go through a lot to the point they couldn't ignore it anymore. -
The German Submarine (U-boat) torpedoed and sank the Lusitania, a swift-moving British cruise liner traveling from New York (in the US) to Liverpool, England. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children on board, 1,195 perished, including 123 Americans. Americans were involved here and the disaster led off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I. -
American voters re-elect president Woodrow Wilson, Who had campaigned on the slogan "He Kept Us Out Of War." President Wilson changed the nation's economic policies and led the United States into World War I. He was the leading architect of the League of Nations, and his stance on foreign policy came to be known as Wilsonianism. -
The British intercept a telegram sent by Alfred Zimmermann in the German Foreign Office to the German embassies in Washington, D.C. (in the U.S), and Mexico City. This effected the U.S, because there was country's teaming up on the U.S, Germany was basically telling Mexico that they would provide tactical support while Mexico would benefit by expanding onto the American southwest, retrieving territories that had once been part of Mexico. -
The United States of America declares war ON Germany. Until that day, the United States had remained neutral. The declaration of war was a response to the submarine war that Germany had been waging on its enemies since January 1917. This either led them to more problems or just settled everything. -
This effected the U.S, On 26th June 1917, the first 14,000 American soldiers began arriving at the port of St Nazaire in France. Their arrival had been kept a secret to further guard against German intervention, but it did not take long for the local French population to begin cheering them through the streets. -
The Sedition Act of 1918 was enacted on May 16, 1918 to extend the Espionage Act of 1917. This effected the U.S because 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. This had good and bad causes. Many American people died, but they were fighting for what they wanted. -
The Versailles Peace Treaty, signed on June 28, 1919, officially ended World War I. At the Palace of Versailles in France, a German delegation signs the Treaty formally ending the war. Its 230 pages contain terms that have little in common with Wilson's Fourteen Points as the Germans had hoped. Germans back home react with mass demonstrations against the perceived harshness, especially clauses that assess sole blame for the war on Germany.