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Assassination of Franz Ferdinand
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie, happened in Sarajevo where they were killed by Gavrilo Princip.Princip was one of a group of six assassins (five Serbs and one Bosniak) coordinated by Danilo Ilić, a Bosnian Serb and a member of the Black Hand secret society -
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Battle of Tannenberg
Russia vs. Germany: It became an example of Russian incompetence. The entire Russian 2nd army was annihilated.The battle resulted in the almost complete destruction of the Russian Second Army. Germans won -
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Battle of the Marne
Germany vs. France: This battle stopped the German assault into France. The Germans were halted and both sides dug trenches, which became the Western Front. France won -
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Battle of Gallipoli
Britain vs. the Ottoman Empire: the british attempted a naval invasion to seize the Ottoman capital of Istsnbul and open a sea route to resupply Russia.The peninsula forms the northern bank of the Dardanelles, a strait that provided a sea route to the Russian Empire, one of the Allied powers during the war. -
Sinking of the Lusitania
German U-boat torpedoed and sank the Lusitania. 1,198 people of 1,959 died. -
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Battle of Verdun
Germany vs. France: The longest battle on the Western Front at 303 days. It turned into an attrition battle, with both sides enduring horrific casualties. France won -
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Battle of the Somme
Germany vs. France and Britain: the largest battle of WWI on the Western Front, and one of the bloodiest in human history with 1+ million dead. The first battle to use tanks. Inconclusive outcome -
Interception of the Zimmerman Telegram
On January 16, the telegram came into Room 40, the office of British Naval Intelligence under the order of Admiral William Hall. A secret diplomatic communication issued from the German Foreign Office in January 1917 that proposed a military alliance between Germany and Mexico. -
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March Russian Revolution
A revolution focused around Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg), the capital of Russia at that time. In the chaos, members of the Imperial parliament (the Duma) assumed control of the country, forming the Russian Provisional Government which was heavily dominated by the interests of large capitalists and the noble aristocracy. -
US joins WWI
Two days after the U.S. Senate votes 82 to 6 to declare war against Germany, the U.S. House of Representatives endorses the decision by a vote of 373 to 50, and the United States formally enters the First World War. -
November Russian Revolution
A revolution in Russia led by the Bolsheviks and Vladimir Lenin that was instrumental in the larger Russian Revolution of 1917. It took place with an armed insurrection in Petrograd on 7 November (25 October, O.S.) 1917. -
Signing of the Armistice
The Armistice of 11 November 1918 was the armistice that ended fighting on land, sea and air in World War I between the Allies and their opponent, Germany. Also known as the Armistice of Compiègne from the place where it was signed, it came into force at 11 a.m. Paris time on 11 November 1918 -
Signing of the Treaty of Versailles
The most important of the peace treaties that brought World War I to an end. The Treaty ended the state of war between Germany and the Allied Powers. -
Creation of the League of Nations
The League of Nations was an international diplomatic group developed after World War I as a way to solve disputes between countries before they erupted into open warfare. -
Creation of the USSR
Also known as the Soviet Union, the new communist state was the successor to the Russian Empire and the first country in the world to be based on Marxist socialism. The Bolshevik Party under Vladimir Lenin dominated the soviet forces, a coalition of workers’ and soldiers’ committees that called for the establishment of a socialist state in the former Russian Empire
