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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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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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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.
The Germans dug in the north of the Aisne River, and the trench warfare that is to typify the Western Front for the next four years begins. -
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.
Some 5,000 French and Algerian troops are killed. By war’s end, both sides have used massive quantities of chemical weapons, causing an estimated 1,300,000 casualties, including 91,000 fatalities. -
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. The ship had been carrying over 170 tons of rifle ammunition and artillery shells, and Germany felt fully justified in treating the Lusitania as a legitimate target in a declared war zone.
