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The Election Of President Woodrow Wilson
The electoral vote was one of the closest in U.S. history – with 266 votes needed to win, Wilson took 30 states for 277 electoral votes, while Hughes won 18 states and 254 electoral votes. Wilson was the second of just four presidents in United States history to win re-election with a lower percentage of the electoral vote than in their prior elections, after James Madison in 1812, Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1940 and 1944 and Barack Obama in 2012. -
the assassination of archduke Franz Ferdinand: the outbreak of WWI
President Woodrow Wilson delivered a message to Congress on August 19, 1914, declaring the neutrality of the United States in World War I.
President Wilson was reluctant to enter World War I. When the War began, Wilson declared U.S. neutrality and demanded that the belligerents respect American rights as a neutral party. He hesitated to embroil the United States in the conflict, with good reason. -
America Proclaims Neutrality in World War I
President Woodrow Wilson delivered a message to Congress on August 19, 1914, declaring the neutrality of the United States in World War I. President Wilson was reluctant to enter World War I. When the War began, Wilson declared U.S. neutrality and demanded that the belligerents respect American rights as a neutral party. He hesitated to embroil the United States in the conflict, with good reason. -
The Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne marked the end of the German sweep into France and the beginning of the trench warfare that was to characterise World War One. Germany's grand Schlieffen Plan to conquer France entailed a wheeling movement of the northern wing of its armies through central Belgium to enter France near Lille. It would turn west near the English Channel and then south to cut off the French retreat. -
The Re-Election of President Woodrow Wilson
The 1916 United States presidential election was the 33rd quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1916. Incumbent Democratic President Woodrow Wilson narrowly defeated former associate justice of the Supreme Court Charles Evans Hughes, the Republican candidate. In June, the 1916 Republican National Convention chose Hughes as a compromise between the conservative and progressive wings of the party. -
The Sinking of the Lusitania
The German submarine U-20 torpedoed and sank the Lusitania, a swift-moving British cruise liner traveling from New York to Liverpool, England. Of the 1,959 men, women, and children on board, 1,195 perished, including 123 Americans. A headline in the New York Times the following day—"Divergent Views of the Sinking of The Lusitania"—sums up the initial public response to the disaster. Some saw it as a blatant act of evil and transgression against the conventions of war. -
The Battle of the Verdun
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. German Gen. Erich von Falkenhayn believed that the war would be won or lost in France, and he felt that a strategy of attrition was Germany’s best hope of achieving its goals. -
The Sussex incident
Sussex pledge, agreement by the German government during World War I to stop the indiscriminate sinking of nonmilitary ships. The pledge followed the torpedoing of the French passenger steamer Sussex in the English Channel by a German submarine on March 24, 1916. The submarine captain attacked the Sussex because he believed that it was a British minelayer. Fifty people died and many more were injured, including several Americans. -
The Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme, which took place from July to November 1916, began as an Allied offensive against German forces along the Western Front of World War I, near the Somme River in France. The battle turned into one of the most bitter, deadly and costly battles in all of human history, as British forces suffered more than 57,000 casualties—including more than 19,000 soldiers killed—on the first day of the battle alone. -
The Declaration of New Unrestricted Submarine Warfare by Germany
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, and 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. -
The United States Enter World War I
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. The House concurred two days later. The United States later declared war on German ally Austria-Hungary on December 7, 1917. -
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. Under the act, approximately 24 million men registered for the draft. Of the total U.S. troops sent to Europe, 2.8 million men had been drafted, and 2 million men had volunteered. -
The Espionage Act
The Espionage Act broadly sought to crack down on wartime activities considered dangerous or disloyal, including attempts to acquire defense-related information with the intent to harm the United States, or acquire code and signal books, photographs, blueprints, and other such documents with the intention of passing them to America’s enemies. -
The Landing of the American Expeditionary Force 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. -
The Interception of the Zimmermann Telegram
The telegram further conveyed Germany’s intentions should America enter the war. That included urging Mexico to join Germany in declaring war against the United States. In exchange, Germany committed to assist Mexico in regaining its lost territories of Arizona, Texas, and New Mexico. A second intercepted telegram from Zimmermann instructed the German Embassy not to wait until the United States joined the war to present its offer to Mexico. -
The Beginning of the Spanish Flu Epidemic
It was caused by an H1N1 virus with genes of avian origin. Although there is not universal consensus regarding where the virus originated, it spread worldwide during 1918-1919. In the United States, it was first identified in military personnel in spring 1918. It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with this virus.The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States. -
The Fourteen Points by President Wilson
In this January 8, 1918, address to Congress, President Woodrow Wilson proposed a 14-point program for world peace. These points were later taken as the basis for peace negotiations at the end of World War I. In this January 8, 1918, speech on War Aims and Peace Terms, President Wilson set down 14 points as a blueprint for world peace that was to be used for peace negotiations after World War I. -
Russian Pulls Out of World War I
Russia left WW1 because it was in the interest of Russian Communists (Bolsheviks) who took power in November 1917. The Bolsheviks' priority was to win a civil war against their domestic opponents, not to fight in WW1. They also thought that Germany would soon lose the war in any case. -
The Passing of the Sedition Act
Passed by a Federalist-controlled Congress on July 14, the Sedition Act of 1798 was part of a series of measures, commonly known as the Alien and Sedition Acts, ostensibly designed to deal with the threats involved in the “quasi-war” with France. Critics viewed the act as a thinly disguised partisan effort to control political debate until the next presidential election. The clash over the Sedition Act yielded the first sustained debate over the meaning of the First Amendment. -
The Battle Of Argonne Forest
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive was the largest operation of the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) in World War I, with over a million American soldiers participating. It was also the deadliest campaign in American history, resulting in over 26,000 soldiers being killed in action (KIA) and over 120,000 total casualties. Indeed, the number of graves in the American military cemetery at Romagne is far larger than those in the more commonly known site at Omaha Beach in Normandy. -
Armistice Day Ended World War I
Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, was shot to death with his wife by Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo, Bosnia. Ferdinand had been inspecting his uncle’s imperial armed forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the threat of Serbian nationalists who wanted these Austro-Hungarian possessions to join newly independent Serbia. -
The Paris Peace Conference & Treaty of Versailles
The Paris Peace Conference convened in January 1919 at Versailles just outside Paris. The conference was called to establish the terms of the peace after World War I. Though nearly thirty nations participated, the representatives of the United Kingdom, France, the United States, and Italy became known as the “Big Four.” The “Big Four” dominated the proceedings that led to the formulation of the Treaty of Versailles, a treaty that ended World War I.