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The Election of President Woodrow Wilson
Wilson defeated incumbent Republican William Howard Taft and third-party nominee Theodore Roosevelt to easily win the 1912 United States presidential election, becoming the first Southerner to do so since 1848. -
The Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand: The Outbreak of WWI
The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo (the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina) on 28 June 1914 eventually led to the outbreak of the First World War. -
America Proclaims Neutrality in World War I
President Woodrow Wilson declared U.S. neutrality on August 4, 1914, and many Americans saw little reason to entangle themselves in what they viewed as European quarreling and intrigue. -
The Battle of the Marne
The First Battle of the Marne succeeded in pushing the Germans back for a distance of 40 to 50 miles and thus saved the capital city of Paris from capture. In this respect, it was a great strategic victory, since it enabled the French to renew their confidence and to continue the war. -
The Sinking of the Lusitania
The RMS Lusitania was a British-registered ocean liner that was torpedoed by an Imperial German Navy U-boat during the First World War on 7 May 1915, about 11 nautical miles off the Old Head of Kinsale, Ireland. -
The Battle of the Verdun
The Battle of Verdun was fought from 21 February to 18 December 1916 on the Western Front in France. The battle was the longest of the First World War and took place on the hills north of Verdun-sur-Meuse. -
The Sussex Incident
Sussex Incident, (March 24, 1916), torpedoing of a French cross-Channel passenger steamer, the Sussex, by a German submarine, leaving 80 casualties, including two Americans wounded. The attack prompted a U.S. threat to sever diplomatic relations. -
The Battle of the Somme
The Battle of the Somme, also known as the Somme Offensive, was a battle of the First World War fought by the armies of the British Empire and the French Third Republic against the German Empire. It took place between 1 July and 18 November 1916 on both sides of the upper reaches of the river Somme in France. -
The Re-Election of President Woodrow Wilson
Another burst of legislation followed in 1916. One new law prohibited child labor; another limited railroad workers to an eight-hour day. By virtue of this legislation and the slogan “he kept us out of war,” Wilson narrowly won re-election. -
The Interception of the Zimmermann Telegram
On January 17, 1917 British signals intelligence intercepted and decrypted a coded German telegram from German Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmermann that was intended for Germany's ambassador to Mexico. -
The Declaration of New Unrestricted Submarine Warfare by Germany
On 4 February 1915, Germany declared a war zone around Britain, within which merchant ships were sunk without warning. This 'unrestricted submarine warfare' angered neutral countries, especially the United States. -
The United States Enters World War I
Germany's resumption of submarine attacks on passenger and merchant ships in 1917 became the primary motivation behind Wilson's decision to lead the United States into World War I. -
The Selective Service Act
The Selective Service Act of 1917 or Selective Draft Act authorized the United States federal government to raise a national army for service in World War I through conscription. -
The Espionage Act
The Espionage Act of 1917 is a United States federal law enacted on June 15, 1917, shortly after the United States entered World War I. It has been amended numerous times over the years. It was originally found in Title 50 of the U.S. Code but is now found under Title 18 -
The Landing of the American Expeditionary Force in France
The American Expeditionary Forces (AEF), a formation of the United States Army on the Western Front of World War I, was established on July 5, 1917, in France under Major General John J. Pershing. The AEF fought alongside the French, British, Canadian, and Australian Armies against the German empire. -
The Beginning of the Spanish Flu Epidemic
The Spanish influenza arrived in the United States at a time when new forms of mass transportation, mass media, mass consumption, and mass warfare had vastly expanded the public places in which communicable diseases could spread. -
The Fourteen Points by President Wilson
Designed as guidelines for the rebuilding of the postwar world, the points included Wilson's ideas regarding nations' conduct of foreign policy, including freedom of the seas and free trade and the concept of national self-determination, with the achievement of this through the dismantling of European empires -
Russia Pulls Out of World War I
The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was a separate peace treaty signed on 3 March 1918 between Soviet Russia and the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria), by which Russia withdrew from World War I. -
The Passing of the Sedition Act
The Sedition Act of 1918 curtailed the free speech rights of U.S. citizens during times of war. Passed on May 16, 1918, as an amendment to Title I of the Espionage Act of 1917, the act provided for further and expanded limitations on speech -
The Battle of Argonne Forest
The Meuse–Argonne offensive was a major part of the final Allied offensive of World War I that stretched along the entire Western Front. It was fought from September 26, 1918, until the Armistice of November 11, 1918, a total of 47 days. -
Armistice Day Ends World War I
Armistice on the Western Front. On Nov. 11, 1918, after more than four years of horrific fighting and the loss of millions of lives, the guns on the Western Front fell silent. Although fighting continued elsewhere, the armistice between Germany and the Allies was the first step to ending World War I. -
The Paris Peace Conference & Treaty of Versailles
The Treaty of Versailles was the primary treaty produced by the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I. It was signed on June 28, 1919, by the Allied and associated powers and by Germany in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles and went into effect on January 10, 1920