What Happened in 1914 — Events, Births & Deaths

The Ford Motor Company announces an eight-hour workday and minimum daily wage of $5 in salary plus bonuses.

The Phi Beta Sigma fraternity is founded by African-American students at Howard University in Washington D.C., United States.

The Karluk, flagship of the Canadian Arctic Expedition, sinks after being crushed by ice.

Copyright: In New York City the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers is established to protect the copyrighted musical compositions of its members.

HMHS Britannic, sister to the RMS Titanic, is launched at Harland and Wolff shipyard in Belfast.

In the Curragh incident, over 100 British Army officers threaten to resign if ordered to march against the Ulster Volunteers.

The Greek multi-sport club Aris Thessaloniki is founded in Thessaloniki.

Nineteen men, women, and children participating in a strike are killed in the Ludlow Massacre during the Colorado Coalfield War.

Ypiranga incident: A German arms shipment to Mexico is intercepted by the U.S. Navy near Veracruz.

The Franck–Hertz experiment, a pillar of quantum mechanics, is presented to the German Physical Society.

The Protocol of Corfu is signed, recognising full autonomy to Northern Epirus under nominal Albanian sovereignty.

The House of Commons of the United Kingdom passes the Home Rule Bill for devolution in Ireland.

The ocean liner RMS Empress of Ireland sinks in the Gulf of Saint Lawrence with the loss of 1,012 lives.

The new, and then the largest, Cunard ocean liner RMS Aquitania, 45,647 tons, sets sail on her maiden voyage from Liverpool, England, to New York City.

Massacre of Phocaea: Turkish irregulars slaughter 50 to 100 Greeks and expel thousands of others in an ethnic cleansing operation in the Ottoman Empire.

Mexican Revolution: Pancho Villa takes Zacatecas from Victoriano Huerta.

The Illinois Monument is dedicated at Cheatham Hill in what is now the Kennesaw Mountain National Battlefield Park.

Causes of World War I: Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife Sophie are assassinated in Sarajevo, beginning the July Crisis and providing the casus belli of World War I.

Babe Ruth makes his debut in Major League Baseball.

Felix Ysagun Manalo registers the Iglesia ni Cristo (Church of Christ) as Iglesia ni Kristo with the government of the Philippines.

The U.S. Congress forms the Aviation Section, U.S. Signal Corps, giving official status to aircraft within the U.S. Army for the first time.

World War I: In the culmination of the July Crisis, Austria-Hungary declares war on the Kingdom of Serbia and begins the Great War.

The Cape Cod Canal opened.

World War I: The German Empire declares war on the Russian Empire.

World War I: The Swiss Army mobilizes because of World War I.

World War I: The German occupation of Luxembourg begins.

World War I: Germany declares war against France, while Romania declares its neutrality.

World War I: In response to the German invasion of Belgium, Belgium and the British Empire declare war on Germany. The United States declares its neutrality.

World War I: The German minelayer SS Königin Luise lays a minefield about 40 miles (64 km) off the Thames Estuary (Lowestoft). She is intercepted and sunk by the British light-cruiser HMS Amphion.

World War I: The guns of Point Nepean fort at Port Phillip Heads in Victoria (Australia) fire across the bows of the Norddeutscher Lloyd steamer SS Pfalz which is attempting to leave the Port of Melbourne in ignorance of the declaration of war and she is detained; this is said to be the first Allied shot of the War.

In Cleveland, Ohio, the first electric traffic light is installed.

World War I: U-boat campaign: Two days after the United Kingdom had declared war on Germany over the German invasion of Belgium, ten German U-boats leave their base in Heligoland to attack Royal Navy warships in the North Sea.

World War I: Serbia declares war on Germany; Austria declares war on Russia.

World War I: France, the United Kingdom and the British Empire declare war on Austria-Hungary.

World War I: The Battle of Halen a.k.a. Battle of the Silver Helmets, a clash between large Belgian and German cavalry formations at Halen, Belgium.

World War I: Start of the Battle of Lorraine, an unsuccessful French offensive.

German admiral Wilhelm Souchon hands over the two warships under his command to the Ottomans and becomes commander of the Turkish navy, leading later to the entry of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.

World War I: Brussels is captured during the German invasion of Belgium.

World War I: The Battle of Charleroi, a successful German attack across the River Sambre that pre-empted a French offensive in the same area.

World War I: The British Expeditionary Force and the French Fifth Army begin their Great Retreat before the German Army.

World War I: Japan declares war on Austria-Hungary.

World War I: The library of the Catholic University of Leuven is deliberately destroyed by the German Army. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and Gothic and Renaissance manuscripts are lost.

World War I: The German colony of Togoland surrenders to French and British forces after a 20-day campaign. Togoland is the first German colony to fall to Allied hands in World War I.

World War I: During the retreat from Mons, the British II Corps commanded by General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien fights a vigorous and successful defensive action at Le Cateau.

World War I: Battle of Étreux: A British rearguard action by the Royal Munster Fusiliers during the Great Retreat.

World War I: Siege of Tsingtao: A Japanese fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Sadakichi Kato imposes a blockade along the whole coastline of German Tsingtao, initiating the Siege of Tsingtao.

World War I: The Royal Navy defeats the German fleet in the Battle of Heligoland Bight.

World War I: Start of the Battle of St. Quentin in which the French Fifth Army counter-attacked the invading Germans at Saint-Quentin, Aisne.

World War I: Germans defeat the Russians in the Battle of Tannenberg.

Wilhelm, Prince of Albania leaves the country after just six months due to opposition to his rule.

French composer Albéric Magnard is killed defending his estate against invading German soldiers.

World War I: Start of the Battle of Grand Couronné, a German assault against French positions on high ground near the city of Nancy.

World War I: First Battle of the Marne begins. Northeast of Paris, the French attack and defeat German forces who are advancing on the capital.

World War I: Private Thomas Highgate becomes the first British soldier to be executed for desertion during the war.

HMAS AE1, the Royal Australian Navy's first submarine, is lost at sea with all hands near East New Britain, Papua New Guinea.

A German submarine sinks three British cruisers over a seventy-minute period, killing almost 1,500 sailors.

The United States Federal Trade Commission is established by the Federal Trade Commission Act.

World War I: An aircraft successfully destroys another aircraft with gunfire for the first time.

World War I: The Siege of Antwerp comes to an end.

The Schoenstatt Apostolic Movement is founded in Germany.

World War I: The First Battle of Ypres begins.

World War I: The new British battleship HMS Audacious is sunk by a minefield laid by the armed German merchant-cruiser Berlin.

World War I: The Russian Empire declares war on the Ottoman Empire and the Dardanelles is subsequently closed.

World War I: France and the British Empire declare war on the Ottoman Empire.

SMS Emden is sunk by HMAS Sydney in the Battle of Cocos.

Zaian War: Berber tribesmen inflict the heaviest defeat of French forces in Morocco at the Battle of El Herri.

The Federal Reserve Bank of the United States officially opens.

Mexican Revolution: The last of U.S. forces withdraw from Veracruz, occupied seven months earlier in response to the Tampico Affair.

World War I: Following a war-induced closure in July, the New York Stock Exchange re-opens for bond trading.

The Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition begins in an attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica.

World War I: A squadron of Britain's Royal Navy defeats the Imperial German East Asia Squadron in the Battle of the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

Lisandro de la Torre and others found the Democratic Progressive Party (Partido Demócrata Progresista, PDP) at the Hotel Savoy, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

World War I: The Serbian Army recaptures Belgrade from the invading Austro-Hungarian Army.

A gas explosion at Mitsubishi Hōjō coal mine, in Kyushu, Japan, kills 687.

World War I: Admiral Franz von Hipper commands a raid on Scarborough, Hartlepool and Whitby.

World War I: Australian and New Zealand troops arrive in Cairo, Egypt.

World War I: During the Battle of Sarikamish, Ottoman forces mistook one another for Russian troops. The following friendly fire incident leaves 2,000 Ottomans dead and many more wounded.

World War I: The "Christmas truce" begins.

World War I: A series of unofficial truces occur across the Western Front to celebrate Christmas.