WAR IS BREWING: The major European powers, entangled in alliances, are lurching toward a global conflict that will bring about the collapse of empires and a profound realignment of world power. On one side is the Triple Entente, comprising Britain, France and Russia; the alliance
will eventually include Serbia, Belgium, Italy and Japan. On the other is a coalition called the Central Powers: Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Ottoman Empire and Bulgaria. The Balkans, long a theater of local conflict, are a powder keg that will spark a worldwide conflagration, the first global conflict in history.

HONOR THY MOTHER (May): President Wilson officially designates the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day after schoolteacher and Philadelphia suffragist Anna May Jarvis's six year campaign to create a national holiday to honor mothers.

ASSASSINATION (June 28): The flash point comes when Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie von Hohenberg, are shot to death by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia-Herzegovina. Austria-Hungary uses the event as an excuse to neutralize Serbia, which has long been a troublesome neighbor.

A CONTINENT DIVIDED (July 23): No one imagines that Europe will go to war over a punitive action against Serbia, which is something of a pariah state. But the nations of Europe are entangled in a web of alliances. Czar Nicholas II of Russia decides to stick with his ally, Serbia, dragging France into the conflict. Germany is already pledged to back Austria-Hungary.

FIRST DECLARATION (July 28): Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

WAR SPREADS (July 31): Germany asks Russia to cancel its mobilization. When Russia refuses, Germany declares war on Russia. Europe is immediately engulfed in a blizzard of mobilization orders and declarations of war.

	German soldiers in 1914

GERMANY INVADES (Aug. 3): Germany declares war on France and invades Belgium; that draws Great Britain, a guarantor of Belgian neutrality, into the conflict.

ENGINEERING FEAT (Aug. 15): The 51-mile long Panama Canal officially opens, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The canal gives Western freighters a shortcut to Asian markets and allows the United States naval communication between coasts.