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On this day, the Archduke of Austria-Hungary was shot and killed by Gavrillo Princip. This is often viewed as the event that sparked the start of WWI, which would grow due to entangling alliances.
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Germany decides to declare war on France and invades the country through Belgium, which almost forcibly adds France to the World War.
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Britain had told Germany they would stay neutral if Germany did not disturb France, but Germany invaded France anyway, so Britain declares war on Germany.
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While war was occurring in Europe, President Woodrow Wilson argued that the United States should remain neutral in this conflict, and due to the large distance between the US and Europe, many Americans agreed to this idea.
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A passenger ship from the US named Lusitania was sunk by a German submarine just off the coast of Liverpool. 1,198 people were killed, and 128 of those people were US citizens.
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Using his campaign calling for neutrality in the war in Europe, Wilson wins re-election in 1916 over Charles Evans Hughes in a very close vote, which could show that a majority of American citizens at the time wanted to remain neutral in the conflict in Europe.
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On this day, Germany announces that it will resume its policy of unrestricted warfare, attacking any and all ships that may cross paths with their U-Boats in the Atlantic Ocean.
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Great Britain intercepts a message to Mexico from Germany saying that Germany will continue it's unrestricted submarine warfare against the Allied Countries and tries to get Mexico to join the war against America. This is the day that the contents of the note were spread across America through many newspapers.
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On this day, President Woodrow Wilson asked Congress to send troops into Germany to aid the Allied forces, and a couple days later, Congress agrees.
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Congress agrees with President W. Wilson's request to go to war with Germany on this day. America joins the Allied forces (France, Britain and Russia) in the fight against Germany.
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On this day, the act that requires all men between the ages of 21 and 30 in the United States to sign up for the military draft. This was put in place by President Woodrow Wilson to help grow the size of the U.S. army to fight in WWI, and the act is still in place today.
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A particularly deadly strand of Influenza was being rapidly spread across almost all countries across the world, killing nearly 5% of the entire world's population between 1918-1919. The first largely reported case of this flu during this time was in Fort Riley in Kansas.
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In a train car in France, an armistice was signed that stated that all fighting in the Western Front would cease at 11 am from both sides. This ended the four-year bloody conflict within Europe.
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One representative from Great Britain, United States, France, and Italy came together on this day to create a treaty to officially end WWI. This treaty put into place the creation of a League of Nations so that future wars on this scale will not happen again. The United States did not join this league nor did Congress want to sign the treaty, so the US signed a separate treaty with Germany in 1921.
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While discussing terms for the Treaty of Versailles, Woodrow Wilson proposed the idea of a League of Nations to resolve conflicts before war would be declared. This was well accepted, as 42 nations ratified the Covenant of the League of Nations in 1919.
