istoryworld
All Events
from May - hundreds of thousands of Armenians die as the Turks forcibly remove them from their homelands
Dutch aircraft designer Anton Fokker, working for the Germans, vastly improves the Roland Garros technique for firing machine guns through the propellers of fighter planes
South African troops capture German South West Africa
German fighter planes are armed with new machine guns synchronized to fire between the revolving propeller blades
The Germans make their first effective use of a new weapon, the flame thrower, in an attack on the British in the second batte of Ypres
from July - the Russians advance through Turkish Armenia and push west into Anatolia as far as Trabzon
The emperor Nicholas II moves to military HQ to take personal command of the Russian armies
The British use chlorine gas for the first time in an attack on Loos, but in places it is blown back over the British lines when the wind changes
French and British troops land at Salonika and push north to relieve Serbia
Austria-Hungary renews its attack on Serbia, and its troops capture Belgrade
The English nurse Edith Cavell is court-martialled and executed by German forces in Belgium
Bulgaria, hoping to gain territory in disputed Macedonia, declares war on Serbia
The Serbian army flees, abandoning Serbia to Austrian and Bulgarian invaders
A British and Indian force is defeated by the Turks at Ctesiphon, on the bank of the Tigris
German armies make sufficient advances to drive the Russians out of Poland
Allied troops begin a withdrawal from the Dardanelles after the abject failure of the Gallipoli campaign
from December - the 225-horsepower Eagle, the first of many Rolls-Royce aero-engines, is used to power British bombers
After returning to his battalion in April, Harold Macmillan is lightly wounded during a reconaissance patrol
At the battle of the Somme, Harold Macmillan is seriously wounded in the pelvis and thigh
Hlding for a day in a shell hole in no man's land, Harold Macmillan reads 'intermittently' the book in his pocket – Aeschylus's Prometheus in Greek
Wartime income tax soars in Britain to an unprecedented 30%
New Zealand surgeon Harold Gillies sets up a plastic surgery unit at Aldershot, a British military base
The opera Goyescas, by Spanish composer Enrique Granados, has its premiere in New York
Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg found the radical Spartacus League, named after the gladiator
Ras Tafari, a member of the Ethiopian imperial family, deposes his distant relation the emperor and puts on the throne his aunt, Zauditu
