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The Election of President Woodrow Wilson
The first inauguration of Woodrow Wilson as the 28th president of the United States was held on Tuesday, March 4, 1913. This was the 32nd inauguration and marked the commencement of the first four-year term of Woodrow Wilson as president and Thomas R. Woodrow Wilson was elected president in 1912 after serving only two years as governor of New Jersey. -
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand: The Outbreak of WW1
Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are shot to death by a Bosnian Serb nationalist during an official visit to the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. The killings sparked a chain of events that led to the outbreak of World War I by early August. -
America Proclaims Neutrality in WW1
When war broke out in Europe, the United States immediately declared its neutrality. President Woodrow Wilson stated that America must be “impartial in thought as well as in action.” For a century, the U.S. had stayed out of European affairs. Most Americans preferred to continue this policy. -
The Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne was a battle of the First World War fought from 5 to 12 September 1914. It was fought in a collection of skirmishes around the Marne River Valley. It resulted in an Entente victory against the German armies in the west. -
The Sinking of the Lusitania
The disaster set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I. A German U-boat torpedoed the British-owned steamship Lusitania, killing 1,195 people including 128 Americans, on May 7, 1915. The disaster set off a chain of events that led to the U.S. entering World War I. -
The Battle of the Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War. Ultimately, the French resistance at Verdun proved a turning point, halting the German advance. The heavy German losses at Verdun combined with even greater casualties suffered on the Somme also created a manpower crisis within the German army that would become increasingly difficult to resolve as the war progressed. -
The Sussex Incident
Sussex Incident, (March 24, 1916), torpedoing of a French cross-Channel passenger steamer, the Sussex, by a German submarine, leaving 80 casualties, including two Americans wounded. The attack prompted a U.S. threat to sever diplomatic relations. -
The Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and French Third Republic against the German Empire. The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of WW1 and among the bloodiest in all of human history. A combination of a compact battlefield, destructive modern weaponry and several failures by British military leaders led to the unprecedented slaughter of wave after wave of young men. -
The Re-Election of President Woodrow Wilson
Wilson was re-nominated at the 1916 Democratic National Convention a few days later, without opposition. While Wilson's Vice President Thomas R. Marshall was re-nominated, Hughes's running mate was Charles W. Fairbanks, who had been Theodore Roosevelt's vice president in his second term. -
The Interception of the Zimmermann Telegram
The telegram was considered perhaps Britain's greatest intelligence coup of World War I and, coupled with American outrage over Germany's resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, was the tipping point persuading the U.S. to join the war. -
The Declaration of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare by Germany
Unrestricted submarine warfare was first introduced in WW1 in early 1915, when Germany declared the area around the British Isles a war zone. It would be attacked by the German navy. Despite these warnings, the German Government decided to resume unrestricted submarine attacks on all Allied and neutral shipping within prescribed war zones, reckoning that German submarines would end the war long before the first U.S. troopships landed in Europe. -
The United States Enters WW1
Germany's resumption of submarine attacks on passenger and merchant ships in 1917 became the primary motivation behind Wilson's decision to lead the United States into World War I. -
The Selective Service Act
On May 18, 1917, Congress passed the Selective Service Act, which authorized the Federal Government to temporarily expand the military through conscription. The act eventually required all men between the ages of 21 to 45 to register for military service. -
The Landing of the American Expeditionary Force in France
World War I was the first time in American history that the United States sent soldiers abroad to defend foreign soil. On April 6, 1917, when the United States declared war against Germany, the nation had a standing army of 127,500 officers and soldiers. By the end of the war, four million men had served in the United States Army, with an additional 800,000 in other military service branches. -
The passing of the Espionage Act
Enforced largely by A. Mitchell Palmer, the United States attorney general under President Woodrow Wilson, 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. -
The Fourteen Points by President Wilson
The Fourteen Points was a statement of principles for peace that was to be used for peace negotiations in order to end World War I. The principles were outlined in a January 8, 1918 speech on war aims and peace terms to the United States Congress by President Woodrow Wilson. -
The Beginning of the Spanish Flu Epidemic
The 1918 influenza pandemic, commonly known by the misnomer Spanish flu or as the Great Influenza epidemic, was an exceptionally deadly global influenza pandemic caused by the H1N1 influenza A virus -
Russia Pulls Out of WW1
Lenin believed that Russia must end its participation in the war so that the nation could focus on building a communist state based on the ideas of Karl Marx, a German philosopher who lived in the mid-1800s. -
The Passing of the Sedition Act
The Sedition Act of 1918 curtailed the free speech rights of U.S. citizens during the time of war. Passed on May 16, 1918, as an amendment to Title I of the Espionage Act of 1917, the act provided for further and expanded limitations on speech. -
The Battle of Argonne Forest
The Meuse–Argonne offensive was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It was fought from September 26, 1918, until the Armistice of November 11, 1918, a total of 47 days. -
Armistice Day Ends WW1
On Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Although fighting continued elsewhere, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was the first step to ending World War I. -
The Paris Peach Conference & Treaty of Versailles
The Paris Peace Conference was an international meeting convened in January 1919 at Versailles just outside Paris. The purpose of the meeting was to establish the terms of the peace after World War.