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Woodrow Wilson elected US president
Wilson was the first Democrat to win a presidential election since 1892 as well as the first presidential candidate to receive over 400 electoral votes in a presidential election. Roosevelt finished second with 88 electoral votes and 27% of the popular vote. -
Franz Ferdinand Assassinated
Gavrilo Princip assassinates Franz Ferdinand, 1914 (Wikimedia) The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo (the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina) on 28 June 1914 eventually led to the outbreak of the First World War. -
America proclaims neutrality
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. -
Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne succeeded in pushing the Germans back for a distance of 40 to 50 miles and thus saved the capital city of Paris from capture. In this respect it was a great strategic victory, since it enabled the French to renew their confidence and to continue the war. -
Sinking of Lusitania
The sinking of RMS Lusitania caused international outrage and helped turn public opinion against Germany, particularly in the then-neutral United States. Of the 1,200 people killed, 128 were American citizens. But the incident did not immediately bring the United States into the war. -
Battle of Verdun
Battle of Verdun, (February 21–December 18, 1916), World War I engagement in which the French repulsed a major German offensive. It was one of the longest, bloodiest, and most-ferocious battles of the war; French casualties amounted to about 400,000, German ones to about 350,000. Some 300,000 were killed. -
Sussex Incident
On 24 March 1916, Sussex was on a voyage from Folkestone to Dieppe when she was torpedoed by SM UB-29. The ship was severely damaged, with the entire bow forward of the bridge blown off. Some of the lifeboats were launched, but at least two of them capsized and many passengers were drowned. -
Battle of the Somme
The 1916 Somme offensive was one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the First World War (1914-18). The opening day of the attack, 1 July 1916, saw the British Army sustain 57,000 casualties, the bloodiest day in its history. -
Re-election of Woodrow Wilson
Another burst of legislation followed in 1916. One new law prohibited child labor; another limited railroad workers to an eight-hour day. By virtue of this legislation and the slogan “he kept us out of war,” Wilson narrowly won re-election. -
Interception of the Zimmerman
On January 17, 1917 British signals intelligence intercepted and decrypted a coded German telegram from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann that was intended for Germany's ambassador to Mexico. -
New Unrestricted Submarine Warfare
On January 31, 1917, Bethmann Hollweg went before the German Reichstag government and made the announcement that unrestricted submarine warfare would resume the next day, February 1: "The destructive designs of our opponents cannot be expressed more strongly -
US enters WWI
On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. -
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. -
Espionage act
The Espionage Act of 1917 prohibited obtaining information, recording pictures, or copying descriptions of any information relating to the national defense with intent or reason to believe that the information may be used for the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation. -
Landing of American Expeditionary Forces in France
The first American Expeditionary Forces' (AEF) contingent landed in France in late June 1917 at Saint-Nazaire. The war would soon enter its fourth year with no end in sight. Every French family had been touched by the injury and loss of loved ones, and the austerities of war. -
Spanish Flu epidemic
The flu afflicted over 25 percent of the U.S. population. In one year, the average life expectancy in the United States dropped by 12 years. It is an oddity of history that the influenza epidemic of 1918 has been overlooked in the teaching of American history. -
Fourteen Points
They prescribed a program of transparency in international relations, free trade, freedom of the seas, reductions in armaments, national self-determination, and adjustment of colonial claims that gave equal weight to the peoples of the colonized countries. -
Russia leaves ww1
Russian Communists (Bolsheviks) took power on November 7, 1917, having promised to withdraw Russia from the war. They signed a ceasefire with Germany on December 15, 1917. Yet, Russia formally withdrew from the war only with the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk on March 3, 1918. -
Battle of Argonne Forest
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive in September 1918 was part of a large Allied effort to attack the Germans along the entire front to force them out of France and back into Germany. The plan sought to take advantage of the arrival of the American Expeditionary Force under General Pershing. -
Armistice day
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. -
Paris peace conference
In January 1919, the combatant nations gathered in Paris for a peace conference. Five treaties would be negotiated at the conference, one for each of the Central Powers. The most important was the Treaty of Versailles, between the Allies and Germany.