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Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand is Assassinated along with his wife on their way to visit Sarajevo. This was generally accepted by historians as the main cause of ww1, but not all agree because apparantly there had been problems building beforehand.
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Germany invades Belgium, beginning World War I
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he Allies stopped the German invasion of Paris.
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The Germans fire shells filled with chlorine gas at Allied lines. This is the first time that large amounts of gas are used in battle, and the result is the near-collapse of the French lines. However, the Germans are unable to take advantage of the breach.
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A German submarine sinks the passenger liner Lusitania. The ship carries 1,198 people, 128 of them Americans.
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The British employ the first tanks ever used in battle, at Delville Wood. Although they are useful at breaking through barbed wire and clearing a path for the infantry, tanks are still primitive and they fail to be the decisive weapon, as their designers thought they would be.
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Congress authorizes a declaration of war against Germany. The United States enters World War I on the side of France and Britain.
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The Germans sign a peace treaty with the new Bolshevik government of Russia. The terms of the treaty give Germany huge tracts of land that had been the Ukraine and Poland, and peace on the Eastern Front allows Germany to shift soldiers to the Western Front, causing serious problems for the French, British, and Americans
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The Austrian-Hungarian Empire surrenders and signs that armistice with Italy
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An Armistice is signed ending fighting on the Western Front.
