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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie, are assassinated by a Bosnian Serb nationalist in Sarajevo.
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World War I begins when Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia.
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Germany declares war on Russia, France, and Belgium. Britain declares war on Germany. Austria declares war on Russia. Montenegro declares war on Austria. France declares war on
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The First Battle of the Marne begins. The Germans had advanced to within 30 miles of Paris, but over the next two days, the French are reinforced by 6,000 infantrymen who are transported to the front by hundreds of taxis.
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Britain and France declare war on the Ottoman Empire.
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The Second Battle of Ypres begins. The German army initiates the modern era of chemical warfare by launching a chlorine attack on Allied trenches.
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The British ocean liner Lusitania is torpedoed by a German U-boat off the southern coast of Ireland. It sinks in just 18 minutes, and nearly 1,200 people are killed, including 128 U.S. citizens.
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The British and German fleets meet 60 miles off the coast of Jutland, Denmark, in the war’s only major encounter between the world’s two largest sea powers.
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The British sent 49 tanks into the battle. WW1 tanks were very slow and couldn't exceed 4 miles an hour.
Tanks in WW1 played an extremely important role as they increased mobility on the Western Front and eventually broke the stalemate of trench warfare. -
The United States declares war on Germany. In his address to Congress four days earlier, U.S. Pres.
Woodrow Wilson had cited Germany’s practice of unrestricted submarine warfare and the “Zimmermann Telegram” as key reasons behind the abandonment of his long-standing policy of neutrality. -
Germany and the Allies conclude an armistice based largely on Wilson’s Fourteen Points.
