The 1910s Government, Politics, and Law: Chronology

1910:     March 26 Congress amends the Immigration Act of 1907, prohibiting criminals, anarchists, the poor, and people carrying infectious disease from entering the United States.

1910:     June 20 Congress authorizes the New Mexico Territory and the Arizona Territory to form state governments and apply for statehood.

1910:     June 25 Congress passes the Publicity Act, requiring members of Congress to report campaign contributions.

1911:     May 29 In U.S. v. American Tobacco Company, the Supreme Court finds "the tobacco trust" in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act.

1912:     January 6 New Mexico becomes the forty-seventh state.

1912:     February 14 Arizona becomes the forty-eighth state.

1912:     April 14 The new luxury ocean liner Titanic hits an iceberg and sinks within hours. The investigation that follows attracts international attention.

1912:     May 12 The national convention of the Socialist Party of America convenes in Indianapolis. Eugene V. Debs is the presidential nominee.

1913:     February 25 The Sixteenth Amendment is adopted, legalizing a federal income tax.

1913:     March 4 Woodrow Wilson takes the oath of office and becomes the twenty-eighth U.S. president.

1913:     December 23 The Federal Reserve Act becomes law. It establishes a regulatory system to increase economic stability throughout the country.

1914:     July 28 Austria declares war on Serbia in what will later become known as World War I.

1914:     September 26 The Federal Trade Commission is set up to prevent monopolies and preserve competition and free commerce.

1915:     January 28 Congress establishes the U.S. Coast Guard.

1915:     May 7 A British passenger liner, the Lusitania, is sunk by Germans off the Irish coast. Among the dead are 128 Americans.

1916:      Margaret Sanger, a prominent advocate of birth control, is found guilty of obscenity charges in New York State for distributing her book Family Limitation (1914).

1916:     January 27 President Wilson begins a tour of the United States urging Americans to prepare for their nation's entry into the war in Europe.

1916:     July 11 Congress passes the Federal Highway Act, authorizing assistance to states for road construction.

1916:     September 7 Congress passes the Workmen's Compensation Act, which offers coverage to five hundred thousand federal workers.

1917:     February 3 The United States severs diplomatic relations with Germany.

1917:     March 5 President Wilson is inaugurated for his second term in office.

1917:     March 20 Wilson's cabinet unanimously advises the president to ask Congress to declare war on Germany.

1917:     November 6 An amendment to the New York State constitution gives women the right to vote in state elections.

1918:      Mississippi becomes the last state to pass a law authorizing compulsory school attendance.

1918:     January 8 President Wilson addresses Congress to present the Fourteen Points, his proposal for peace for a postwar world.

1918:     March 19 Congress passes legislation to put into effect Daylight Saving Time, a step to conserve energy in wartime.

1918:     August 16 U.S. troops are dispatched to Siberia to aid the White Russian Army. They are withdrawn in April 1920.

1918:     November 3 The Allies sign an armistice with Austria-Hungary.

1918:     November 11 On the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month of 1918, the armistice ending World War I goes into effect.

1918:     December 4 President Wilson sails for France to attend the Paris Peace Conference. The French people welcome him enthusiastically.

1919:      The national debt rises from $2 billion in 1917 to $26 billion in 1919.

1919:     January 29 The Eighteenth Amendment, banning the transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages, is ratified.

1919:     February 14 President Wilson proposes the League of Nations at the Paris Peace Conference.

1919:     March 15 Units of the American Expeditionary Forces organize the American Legion.

1919:     June 28 The Treaty of Versailles is signed, officially ending World War I.

1919:     August 14 In a highly publicized trial, the Chicago Tribune is found guilty of having libeled Henry Ford by calling the industrialist an anarchist.

1919:     November 19 The U.S. Senate fails to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, making membership in the newly established League of Nations all but impossible.