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The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand
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. -
Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia
Using the assassination of the Austrian archduke Francis Ferdinand as a pretext to present Serbia with an unacceptable ultimatum, Austria-Hungary declared war on the Slavic country on July 28th in 1914, sparking World War I. -
Germany invades Luxembourg and Belgium
To avoid the French fortifications along the French-German border, the troops had to cross Belgium and attack the French Army by the north. Of course, Belgians refused to let them through, so the Germans decided to enter by force and invaded Belgium on Aug. 4, 1914. -
Austria-Hungary invades Russia
It was determined to take decisive action against Serbia and, by now, knew this risked war with Russia, Serbia's supporter. Austria-Hungary was prepared to risk war because it had the guarantee of German support. The Balkan crisis now threatened a European-wide war. -
German submarine sinks Lusitania
On the afternoon of May 7, 1915, the British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed without warning by a German submarine off the south coast of Ireland. Within 20 minutes, the vessel sank into the Celtic Sea. Of 1,959 passengers and crew, 1,198 people were drowned, including 128 Americans. -
Germany begins the attack on Verdun.
At 7:12 a.m. on the morning of February 21, 1916, a shot from a German Krupp 38-centimeter long-barreled gun—one of over 1,200 such weapons set to bombard French forces along a 20-kilometer front stretching across the Meuse River—strikes a cathedral in Verdun, France, beginning the Battle of Verdun, which would stretch on for 10 months and become the longest conflict of World War I. -
The Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme was one of the largest battles of World War I, 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 -
Battle of Verdun ends
Concluded a 10-month battle with 550,000 French and 450,000 German casualties. -
The United States declares war on Germany
On April 2, 1917, President Woodrow Wilson went before a joint session of Congress to request a declaration of war against Germany. Wilson cited Germany’s violation of its pledge to suspend unrestricted submarine warfare in the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean, as well as its attempts to entice Mexico into an alliance against the United States, as his reasons for declaring war. On April 4, 1917, the U.S. Senate voted in support of the measure to declare war on Germany. -
President Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points
President Woodrow Wilson presents to Congress his outline of Fourteen Points required for peace throughout the world. -
Russia signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk with Germany.
On March 3, 1918, in the city of Brest-Litovsk, located in modern-day Belarus near the Polish border, Russia signed a treaty with the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria) ending its participation in World War I. -
Germany signs the Armistice at Compiègne, ending World War I.
In 1918, the infusion of American troops and resources into the western front finally tipped the scale in the Allies' favor. Germany signed an armistice agreement with the Allies on November 11, 1918.