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Trench warfare begins
Trench warfare was type of combat in which opposing troops fight from trenches facing each other. -
The Schileffan Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was the operational plan for a designated attack on France once Russia, in response to international tension, had started to mobilise her forces near the German border. -
Christmas Truce along the western front
The Christmas truce was a series of widespread but unofficial ceasefires along the Western Front around Christmas 1914. In the week leading up to the holiday, German and British soldiers crossed trenches to exchange seasonal greetings and talk. -
Assassination of Archiduke Ferdinand
On June 28, 1914, a teenage Serbian nationalist gunned down Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, as their motorcade maneuvered through the streets of Sarajevo. -
Germans introduce poison gas
On April 22, 1915, German forces shock Allied soldiers along the western front by firing more than 150 tons of lethal chlorine gas against two French colonial divisions at Ypres, Belgium. This was the first major gas attack by the Germans, and it devastated the Allied line. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
On May 7, 1915, less than a year after World War I (1914-18) erupted across Europe, a German U-boat torpedoed and sank the RMS Lusitania, a British ocean liner en route from New York to Liverpool, England. -
Sussex Pledge
The Sussex Pledge was a promise made in 1916 during World War I by Germany to the United States prior to the latter's entry into the war. -
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The Battle of Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was one of the largest battles of the First World War on the Western Front between the German and French armies. -
General john j pershing became AEF leader
ohn Joseph "Black Jack" Pershing (September 13, 1860 – July 15, 1948) was the general in the United States Army who led the American Expeditionary Forces to victory over Germany in World War I, 1917–18. He rejected British and French demands that American forces be integrated with their armies, and insisted that the AEF would operate as a single unit under his command. -
selective service act became law
The Selective Service System is an independent agency of the United States government that maintains information on those potentially subject to military conscription. -
Zimmerman Telegram
On this day in 1917, the text of the so-called Zimmermann Telegram, a message from the German foreign secretary, Arthur Zimmermann, to the German ambassador to Mexico proposing a Mexican-German alliance in the case of war between the United States and Germany. -
president woodrow wilson asked for a declaration of war
On this day in 1917, President Woodrow Wilson asks Congress to send U.S. troops into battle against Germany in World War I. -
Commitee on Public Information formed
The Committee on Public Information, also known as the CPI or the Creel Committee, was an independent agency of the government of the United States created to influence U.S. public opinion regarding American participation in World War I. -
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Battle of Argonne Forest
The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, also known as the Maas-Argonne Offensive and the Battle of the Argonne Forest, was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. -
WW1 ended
Germany had formally surrendered on November 11, 1918, and all nations had agreed to stop fighting while the terms of peace were negotiated.
